Still Nuthin’

Alright, I probably should have updated the blog a couple days ago, but here’s the short story: Peach is still nowhere to be seen.

We went to the hospital to have a non-stress test done. “Non-stress” for who exactly?

First there was a quick ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels – all good there, lots of fluid to keep baby Peach happily swimming away. That took only about 3 minutes to get scanned and measured.

Next Mom-to-Be was hooked up to two paddles, one that measured the uterine contractions and the other which measured baby Peach’s heart rate. In the first 5 minutes we watched as Peach’s heart rate went up from 135 to 160 beats per minute and held there for about 2 minutes, then settled back down around 140. Mom-to-Be had a button to press when she felt Peach move – it put a marker on the read-out graph showing the heart rate and uterine pressure.

Everything went exactly as expected. But, in order to satisfy the accuracy of the test Mom had to rest there for 20 minutes. So she had at least 3 more episodes of Peach moving, heart rate elevating and stabilizing, then going back to the baseline. All good and normal.

During the middle I noticed the uterine monitor went from 20 up to over 40 and held there for about 4 minutes… and then went back to the mid-20s. Probably a Braxton-Hicks contraction, nothing that Mom-to-Be felt. If it were a real contraction, the monitor would have gone over 60.

And then near the end, little Peach got a bit irritated with it all and started moving and kicking vigorously. A couple kicks were hard enough that we could see the uterine paddle really rock back and forth – all good signs.

We left the hospital relaxed and reassured that even though the baby is a little later than expected, there is no cause for alarm.

So we keep waiting…

Oh yeah, today is Friday the 13th. And it’s pretty clear that Peach won’t be coming tonight, so I guess baby Peach will not be born on the 13th after all.