36 week appointment

Today I had my week 36 exam with the stress test, ultrasound, and meeting with the doctor.


The stress test took longer than normal today - they first hooked me up and we couldn't really hear his heartbeat that well despite the fact that he was clearly moving around as we could hear that! Anyways, she let it go, despite the heartbeat being faint. Apparently it didn't pick up on the doppler well enough and after 20 minutes and showing the doctor, they kept me hooked up longer, moving the heartbeat monitor around where we found his heartbeat a lot better than before. They kept me hooked up for about 10 minutes more before sending me over to ultrasound.

Today's ultrasound was a little different as in addition to checking the placenta and fluid she was checking for various "exercises" and movements. We had to wait for him to do a breathing exercise, having me lay on my side to see if that would get him to do it - she said some babies take awhile with that one in there, fortunately it didn't take him too long once I changed positions.

I met with the doctor...

Apparently the ultrasound, while everything else we looked for today showed as being fine, one of his kidneys appeared larger than the other. The doctor said that in most cases, it could just be that he hadn't peed yet so the kidney was full, however it isn't uncommon for boy babies to have problems with their kidney's not functioning or emptying correctly. She said that since this is 2 abnormalities they've found within a week they want me to see a high risk doctor at the hospital's maternal fetal medicine ward and get my next ultrasound there so they can check on this as well as his femur which we were going to check on again next week anyway.

Honestly, I'm kind of annoyed - it seems like it's just been one thing after another... UTI's, an infection, gestational diabetes and all that annoyance... now this growth thing with his femur and possible enlarged kidney... ugh! And I'm so sick of going the doctor so much too...


YOU CAN COME OUT AT ANYTIME AFTER THIS WEEKEND, JAY!!!!

They put the request in at the hospital while I was there and was going to have my insurance approve it and then call me in the next day or so to schedule the appointment for later this week or early next week. She said if it's early next week I can call and cancel one of my appointments at the clinic next week, as we won't be needing 2 ultrasounds anyway. 

I did notice this sharp, shooting pain the past few nights which felt like him literally bouncing on my cervix. It only lasts a second or so and I can feel him "bouncing" when it happens... boy does it hurt! It's a sharp, shooting pain... he kept doing it last night while I was sitting on the couch. I Googled "baby bouncing on cervix" and apparently it's a pretty common thing, feeling exactly like how I described it. I mentioned it to my doctor today too, just in case, and she gave a laugh and a grin assuring me that that's perfectly normal for this stage and in most cases it's just him trying to "drop down" a bit to get ready to come out.