One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, I headed to my OB for my regular checkup. I was nearly 38 weeks pregnant, so I was seeing him every week. Everything seemed fine, but I mentioned that Jack wasn't moving as much as I was used to. I attributed that to the fact that he was getting bigger and running out of room in there! Dr. Hulsen said that I was probably correct but just to be on the safe side, he wanted me to go down to labor & delivery and have a NST (non-stress test). Basically they would strap a monitor to my belly to monitor his heart rate and I would click a button whenever I felt him move. I thought, eh, it's a half hour, I get to sit on a bed and watch some TV and go to work a little later than I thought. No biggie.

I head downstairs. On my way down, I texted Ryan, who was at work, and then call my mom to let her know what I was doing. I get down there, they take me to a room, get me all hooked up and hand me the remote. After about 10 minutes, the nurse comes in and asks me if I have eaten recently. I tell her that I had a little breakfast but that I was planning to eat after my appointment. They give me some juice and cookies to eat. They hoped that it would wake Jack up a little bit. So, I ate the stuff. I was watching the monitor and noticed at one point that Jack's heartrate dropped really low, really quickly. That apparently got the nurses station all in a tizzy because three of them were in my room within a few seconds.

His heartrate rebounded pretty quickly and they indicated that they were going to call my doctor and see what he wanted to do. In the meantime, I was supposed to keep hitting the button if he moved. A few minutes later, the nurse came back and told me that Dr. Hulsen wanted to send me for another test. This would be a half hour ultrasound where they would watch for movement and for breathing motions. This would turn into one of the scariest moments of my life. So, they wheel me down to radiology and start the test. I chatted with the tech and she told me about her little boy. Jack was just not cooperating at all. He was refusing to move. Normally, if I laid on my back, he would get mad and kick me until I rolled onto my side. No such luck. At about the 25 minute mark, she saw some breathing motions. So, he passed that portion of the test, but he wasn't moving. It was at that point that she "saw something" on the ultrasound and asked another person to come in. I tried to not freak out until they were staring at the screen for what seemed like an eternity and then finally said "yeah, it could be. definitely note it in the report." I seriously lost it at this point. I started to cry and told them that they were freaking me out. I'm in this tiny room all alone and I really just wanted my husband and my mom. They told me that it was okay and that it wasn't a big deal and that the doctor would talk to me about it.

At this point, Jack still hadn't moved, so he failed that portion of the test. They wheel me back to the room I had been in and told me that they were going to hook me back up to the monitor until they were able to talk to the doctor and see what he wanted to do. At this point, I just had a feeling that I was not going to be leaving the hospital. I let Ryan know that he needs to come and then call my mom and ask her to come immediately (she was about 5 minutes away and Ryan was over a half hour away). I knew she could get there a heck of a lot sooner than he would. At that point, I just didn't want to be by myself.

So, my mom arrived just before Dr. Hulsen came down to talk to me (his office is actually in the physicians building attached to the hospital...which was quite convenient). He said that based on the fact that Jack's heartrate had dropped and that he wasn't moving, he thought it would be best to try to get him out of there. They were going to induce my labor that day. I asked him about what the techs saw on the ultrasound and he said that he hadn't seen anything in the report, but that he would look again.

So, the plan was for me to get something to eat (I got a lovely sandwich, chips, and an apple) and then at about 5PM, they would start the induction process. Things went well. My mom stuck around for a while and then at about 9PM, she decided that she would go home and try to get some rest since we figured it would be a while before things got going. Well, not long after she left, my water broke (which apparently doesn't usually happen). That made me quite uncomfortable. By 10:30, we were asking my mom to come back up to the hospital. This was the start of a ridiculously long night in my life! I shall continue the story tomorrow!