rivka

Yesterday evening I went in for a nonstress test, because I'm now officially a week past my due date. They did the test on the L&D floor of the hospital. My midwife didn't show up until the end - it looked like she was having a pretty hectic weekend - so one of the hospital midwives did the actual test. (Wow, do I prefer my own midwives to the hospital version. But the L&D nurse was nice.)

They hooked me to an electronic fetal monitor for about an hour. This involved two flat disks about the size of coasters, but thicker and heavier, held on to my stomach by big elastic bands. Not very conducive to freedom of movement. After about half an hour, the hospital midwife decided that she didn't want me on my back in bed, even with the head of the bed elevated somewhat, so she rolled up a towel and wedged it under my right side to tilt me a little. (As you might imagine, that was even more comfortable.) Intellectually, I already knew that I didn't want continuous fetal monitoring during labor and I didn't want to have to stay in bed. Now that I've actually experienced what it's like to mostly hold one position in bed for fetal monitoring for an hour, while heavily pregnant... yikes. I can't believe it's standard procedure at many hospitals.

But anyway: for an hour, we listened to the Li'l Critter's heartbeat. They wanted to see periods of appropriate acceleration with movement - an increase of at least 15 beats per minute for at least 15 seconds. For the first half of the test, she apparently slumbered peacefully. Finally she woke up and obliged them with lots of movement and beautiful heart accelerations, winning her much praise from our own midwife, who had arrived by that time.

Then we worked out our game plan. We're ready to try Cervidil, which is a prostaglandin - usually used to ripen the cervix, but also highly likely to cause labor if the cervix is already ripe. (As mine is. Ripe, thinning, and dilating. Why aren't I in labor?) The midwife thinks this is an eminently sensible plan. So tonight, at 8:30, we'll meet her at the hospital and get checked in to L&D. She'll insert a little packet of Cervidil right next to my cervix. (It's on a string, so it can be pulled out again if contractions get too intense.) They'll monitor me for an hour or two to make sure that I'm not having any kind of an adverse reaction, and then they'll take off the monitors and let me try to get some sleep. At some point - Cervidil can take up to 12 hours to work - I should wake up in labor.

My mother is coming down on the bus this afternoon. I'm going to take it easy and do some cooking. When Mom gets here, we'll have a celebration dinner (including a birthday cake, I have decided) and then I will head off to the hospital. Hopefully (probably?) to come home with a baby!