A Tour of Labor and Delivery

In preparation of an earlier than anticipated birth, I had my two rounds of steriod injections last Thursday and Friday mornings. I ended up having a slight reaction to them - I turned bright red, as if I had a sunburn, and felt hot to the touch. Luckily I never ran a temperature and the symptoms subsided each day after a few hours. My OB and his nurse seemed concerned though and told me several times to call over the weekend if Finley's movements changed at all. And of course their concern only served to rachet up my anxiety levels a few more knotches!

I've been keeping track of my kick counts and there are definitely times when Finley is consistently the most active, usually early in the morning between 6-7 am and late in the evening between 9-11pm. On Saturday evening I laid down to start my kick count and she only had four little movements, which is a huge decrease from her usual 25+ movements during that time period. Andrew and I decided to wait and see what her movement was like in the morning and decide from there what to do. I didn't sleep very well because I was worried about Finley so at 6 am I laid in bed and waited and prayed for her to start kicking and moving like crazy. But she only moved once and usually it's more like 10-15 kicks. So at 7 am, I woke Andrew and called the on-call doctor who told me to get to Labor and Delivery asap.

We trooped into L&D at St. David's not knowing what to expect but hoping for the best (i.e. not having an emergency c-section today!). They were ready for us and ushered us right into a room. From there I was given another non-stress test and I can't tell you the relief I felt when I heard Finley's little heart beating away! After hearing that, I relaxed a lot and it seemed that as I relaxed and felt the anxiety ebb away, Finley decided to start moving a lot. By this point, I knew our trip to the hospital was all for naught - except I knew I could not have gone through a full day and night worrying like crazy about her well-being. Anyway. After the non-stress test, the doctor came in and gave me an ultrasound and pronounced that all looked good for now. Yay! Now I just have to hope that our perinatologist says the same thing tomorrow too!

At least I got to see firsthand the Labor and Delivery area where evenutally little Finley will come into the world. So I guess this trip just counts as "research"!