Bump in the Rump (and BPP #4)

Thursday was Baby G2's fourth Biophysical Profile and Non-Stress test. They also did a second set of growth measurements. He passed everything with flying colors--again. In fact, he's currently at the 79th percentile of growth, up from the 64th at our last growth scan at 32 weeks. There is a large margin of error when measuring growth by ultrasound at this point in a pregnancy, but at minimum, we are assured that the little guy is not experiencing any growth restriction due to his wonky umbilical cord. I also realized I may have to kiss my hopes of an 8 lb. baby goodbye and come to terms with the idea that pushing out a second nine-pounder could well be in my future. We joked that maybe instead of monitoring for growth restriction, we should be making sure he doesn't get too massive.

Thursday was also supposed to be my the first meeting of my final class at Augsburg. I raced from the clinic to Lydia's school, picked her up, brought her home for a snack, and then loaded her in the car again. (Robin was not able to get home in time, so our plan was to meet at Augsburg and hand her off so that I could get to class.) Note, I said "supposed to be." As we were driving down Lyndale and about to merge onto Interstate 94, I felt a sudden jolt. We were not moving due to bumper-to-bumper traffic, and I was caught pretty off-guard; Lydia was also very confused as to what had happened. The man driving the pick-up truck behind us rolled by and pulled into a parking lot, and I got out. He immediately began blaming the incident on the person behind him--the cars lights weren't on--spewing profanity and racial slurs (because obviously the person's lights weren't on because of their ethnicity and obviously, he rear-ended me because there was a car behind him without headlights, and obviously, the presence of a three-year-old warrants excessive use of every potentially offensive word known to human-kind) and at no point apologizing or asking if I was okay, despite the fact that I am visibly pregnant and had a three year old in the car. I could tell right away that the car was fine and Lydia was fine, and I got on my way as quickly as possible. Lydia was very upset that the person hadn't followed driving directions; "You're not supposed to hit a car with another car!!!" She also later told Robin her hip hurt because "car accidents make your body hurt."

I called the clinic immediately, hoping they would say, "Just monitor movement and make sure you're not experiencing contractions or leaking fluid," but to my dismay, they asked that I come in. Commence four more hours of non-stress testing (and obviously, missing my first class meeting). (Conversations with my midwife and knowledge of fellow mamas' previous experience with similar protocol definitely made me feel like complying with their recommendations was the way to go.) Baby was moving all over the place, putting on his best NST performance ever. His heartrate appeared on the monitor like a roller-coaster track.

I was more interested (and a little caught off-guard) by contractions that I wasn't feeling. The midwife asked if I could feel them and didn't seem too concerned (and I noticed that when I dozed off they stopped immediately, so I'm wondering if they had more to do with my fatigue and stress than anything.) Moreso, I'm realizing that the baby might actually come before February 19 (or after--here's hoping). Thus, Robin was left at our house with a very strong request to actually finish the crib he is building, and I made a Target run to pick up things we will definitely need. Project for tomorrow will be to pack a hospital bag. I'm not term for another week and a half, and the Forty Week mark is still a month away, but at least to ward off Murphy's Law, we're going to try to be a little more action-ready.

I took the next morning off because I was fairly confident that a 5:30 wake-up time following my one-in-the-morning bedtime wouldn't be such a great mix and would mean that my students would be better off with a sub than me, and by the end of yesterday, any achiness and tension in my back and neck had mostly subsided. Now I'm just left hyper-sensitive of any tightening in my belly after watching my uterine activity for 240 glorious minutes.