I had an ultrasound appointment with Maternal Fetal Medicine today! I saw Dr. Steadman, who I really thought I had seen before, but he didn't look familiar. So I think I've now officially seen all 5 of the Perinatologists at the clinic at Woman's, haha! They are all super nice :)
The appointment started out with a regular ultrasound, like always, to check all sorts of measurements and anatomy things. The heads are measuring right around 30 weeks, 5 days, but their tummies and femurs are slightly under, at around 29 weeks, something... which is typical for them. Just means they won't be chunky babies haha. They are both exactly 3 pounds each! As far as percentiles, that puts them in the low 20's, which is still very healthy. This is a great weight for them, and it's great that their weights are the same!!
Based on their current weight, Dr. Steadman predicts they would measure between 5 and 6 pounds if I went to my due date. But he quickly followed that up with "but you won't!" He says we're looking at around 5 pounds each for their birth weights, if I go to 37 or 38 weeks, which he has no reason to think I won't make it until then. Time will tell! He said I should be feeling like someone around 35 weeks pregnant with one baby. If this is what 35 weeks feels like, it's not so bad!! I can do another month or two of this (I think)!
...about the contractions. Hm. Well, as you know if you read the last post, the on-call OB the night I went to the hospital said I should be watching for frequency of contractions over intensity. A few days later, my regular OB said I should be watching for intensity over frequency. So I decided to ask the OB I saw today to see what he thought...and it's back to frequency over intensity. I explained to him that frequency is nooo problem for me, I'm still having up to 30 an hour sometimes!! And usually no less than 4 an hour.
He said he usually suggests people make a visit to the hospital, pain or not, with 4 or more an hour; but since that's kind of the norm for me, I should go in with 8 or more an hour. I like his answer because at least it was very concrete: now I know when I have 8, just go in! I was like are you sureee? I don't want to go in if it's not needed! But he says I'm not wasting anyone's time or causing anyone an inconvenience by going to the hospital for contractions; rather, I'm making sure my babies don't spend time in the NICU! So I guess I can deal with that. I'm promising myself now that if I have 8 or more evenly spaced contractions for at least 2 hours, I'll go. Because we don't want NICU time!!
A few more bits of info from this appt: Baby A is stilllll head down (always has been!) and Baby B is laying across my tummy. For some docs, this means c-section, for others it doesn't! Dr. Steadman said it actually depends on where the doctor was trained...interesting! So I still don't know if a c-section is in the cards for me; it's still totally possible Baby B will turn head down too, but who knows. Also, neither Baby A nor B were being very good breathers today! The ultrasound tech was trying to look for "practice breathing" with both babies, and after turning me on my side, putting a little buzzer on my tummy to startle the babies, and even just shaking my tummy, they still weren't cooperating! She eventually gave up on Baby B because it was so high up in my ribs that she said she would have to put a scope down my throat to see that baby (weird thing to say?), and after Baby A did a few weak breaths, she decided that was enough. Oh well, maybe next time they'll cooperate!
I know I'm a little behind with this blog, I still need to post an update from my last shower and progress in the nursery! But I'm working on it ;)
Thanks for reading!
-beth
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