Okay so on Tuesday November 17th I was 36.5 weeks. Jared went with my to my doctor's appointment last week because we had our last and final "growth ultrasound". I have been getting fetal monitoring tests done for the past several weeks, so we started our appointment out with that. I had maybe one contraction while connected to the monitor and the baby's heart rate looked great! After our 30 minutes of fetal monitoring, we went in for our ultrasound. The baby was measuring at a week ahead of schedule and already weighs 6 pounds, 14 ounces. So he is doing quite well!!! The doctor came back and showed us he has a full head of hair (which I had no idea you could see on an ultrasound....it was crazy). At least now we know the wives tales of lots of hair and heartburn are true....because my heartburn has been BAD! Thank goodness for Costco sized bottles of TUMS!!!
After the ultrasound, we met with our doctor who checked my cervix and told me I had moved from 1 cm. dilated to 1.5 cm. dilated and was 75% effaced.
Everything continued to look great, and she sent us on our way....ready to see us next week.
On Tuesday November 24th (yesterday) I was 37.5 weeks. Once again I started out my doctor's appointment with fetal monitoring. Again, baby's heart rate was nice and strong and happy! Only one contraction on the monitor....so off I went to see the doctor. She brought in the ultrasound machine to check the baby's position (still head down, and facing up), and made sure he had plenty of amniotic fluid still...which he did!
Next, she checked my cervix, and to her surprise I was 3 cm. dilated and 80% effaced. After checking my cervix she did something to me called a membrane "sweep" or stripping of the membranes. Basically with her fingers in a circular motion, she uses this method to separate the bag of water from the side of the uterus near the cervix. Generally prostaglandin hormones are released after doing this procedure which generally helps push along labor. 1 in 6 women will go into labor within 24 hours of having this done. Often times, this method doesn't do anything at all, but because my baby is getting so big and my uterus is much smaller than average, the doctor's wanted to try to help labor along a little sooner. I was fully prepared for this little membrane sweep to be very painful, but it wasn't even slightly uncomfortable for me...the doctor said most patients cry and say it hurts...but apparently I am one tough cookie. ;-)
Anyway, nothing else to report for now, basically we just sit and wait!
2 comments:
I"m so excited! It won't be too long now!! I"m glad everything has gone so wonderfully. I've done the membrane stripping, I didn't think it was bad either. Uncomfortable but not bad. However it did nothing for me. Hopefully it will work for you!! I can't wait until he comes!
Good luck with everything! I can't wait to hear how it goes. Keep us posted!
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