We began our Monday with our new ritual: multiple doctor's visits. Fun fun fun!
Each week until baby comes, we'll see maternal-fetal medicine (MFM) early in the week for BPPs (biophyiscal profile, ultrasound) and lab work, followed by a "regular" office visit on Fridays with Dr. Shumate or one of my midwives for an NST (non stress test, me sitting for 20-30 minutes while baby's heartrate is monitored) and labs.
Since today was our first follow up, we had a few questions regarding the frequency of labs and frequency of visits, especially since in the 3rd trimester, patients are seen by their providers more frequently. We ended up cancelling a "routine" appointment with a midwife for this afternoon since I just got done seeing MFM and the appt seemed a bit redundant and unnecessary, and I'd be seeing a midwife at my NST appointment this coming Friday.
Baby was on her best behavior today and got her 8/8 points almost immediately during the scan. She demonstrated breathing movements and was just squirmy enough that they were able to see her tone and movements well. She is still breach (yay!), this week she's Frank Breach, meaning she is butt down. Last week she was footling breach with her feet down. Her position of choice is her head under my right rib and her face looking left with her feet pointing left as well. Since she moved a bit, I've been more comfortable as the foot jabs on my bladder were extremely unpleasant. She'll get measured again next week for her weight but her fluid levels and blood flow looked great today. Also promising news, the umbilical vein varix wasn't viewable today, so either it resolved or is very minor. I was instructed to continue baby aspirin but told that if I didn't take it every day, it would be ok.
MFM wants me delivered at 37 weeks, which is great because we're hoping for 10-18 so we can all share birthdays on the 18th of something. 10-18 would be 37 weeks and 2 days and as it turns out, Dr Shumate is on call so he'd be doing my surgery. I have the utmost confidence in all of the doctors in the practice, but he really is my favorite and I feel most comfortable with him since he's been following my case so closely. As the days progress, the likelihood of the baby suddenly shifting is very small, especially since she's been in her spot for almost 4 weeks. We'll look into actually getting on the OR schedule for the 18th as it gets closer, but thats where we're looking for delivery.
So thats our updated baby news, Mondays we'll see MFM and Fridays we'll see our incredible midwives with labs at each visit. Certainly if my labs drastically change, so could our plans, but things appear to be stable yet high. Today we got labs and my flu shot out of the way, now if I could only face IVs as easily.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Love,
Matt, Rach, and the nameless wonder
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