Full-Term!!!

I have a GOOD NEWS post finally!!! :) Thank you so much to all of you who have helped us out and who have been praying for us recently!!!! We really appreciate all of the support we are getting right now, and can feel the power of love and prayer we are getting from all around us!

The first piece of good news is that I've been feeling pretty good the last couple of days!!! :D That's just been sooo nice for me! I've had hardly any contractions, my back hasn't hurt much, and overall I'm just feeling like I'm in my third trimester, rather than in labor! The sick, ironic twist is that my Dr checked me today and I'm almost dilated to a 3, and 80% effaced!!!! I went in and was checked on Friday after having another episode of hard contractions coming 3 min apart, and I was still at a 1, so I've made progress since then when I've been feeling good for a change! That's just screwy! But I'll take it.

Today I went in and did another NST (non-stress test), and it didn't start off so great. She was sleeping so much that they had to buzz my stomach 3 times before she finally woke up and gave the Dr the results he was looking for! After the second buzz and getting no reaction from her the Dr was getting concerned that it might be time to pull the plug on this pregnancy, but the third time did it. When I say that they buzzed my stomach I mean that they put something up to my belly and sent out a loud buzz in to get her to wake up. We did this last week and she jumped from one side of my belly to the other! It was hilarious! So after much monitoring (about an hour and a half) I can say that she is still doing well on the NSTs. Phew!

Then I went and got an ultrasound done to check my amniotic fluid again, which actually looks better then it has in weeks! 4 weeks ago my levels were at an 11, last week they were at an 8, and today they are at a 14, which is another great sign of good health! Not that 11 or 8 was bad, but 14 is even better! He also looked at the umbilical cord again and it still looks great, so there's no reason to suspect that she's in trouble in there, other than her size. That's still a concern (don't get me wrong), but all the other signs aren't indicating any problems in the womb, so he wants to give her a little more time to bake. He didn't check her size today, which bothered me until he explained that since ultrasounds can be off by so much they typically don't check the size of a baby very often - maybe every 3 or 4 weeks. If they were to do an ultrasound every week it wouldn't tell them much since they don't grow enough to from week to week to counter the fact that ultrasounds can be off by so much. Does that make sense? It made sense to me, so if it doesn't make sense then I'm explaining it wrong. :P I get why he didn't do one, though. And as long as the NSTs, the umbilical cord, the amniotic fluid, and the fetal movement is all looking good then it's fairly safe to assume that she's doing well in there for now. He's still going to keep a close eye on her, though, and I'll be back in for another NST on Thursday.