Getting You All Caught Up (The Last Ultrasound)!

Finally coming back to this!!

We left off at 38 weeks, concerned about low fluid, the last ultrasound, and induction. Boy, were we in for a whirlwind of surprises that weekend!

Appointment day came, Friday August 7th, and with it my last belly photo. She looks soooo low here!

I remember waking up in a rush, having to get into town quickly, nursing Levi for "the last time" before having her (haha), and generally just not feeling as prepared as I needed to be. Everything - and I do mean everything - for my hospital bags packed into the car (we were half prepared/willing to beg the midwives to start us off that day if my fluid was still low - everything was in place, if it was going to happen it might as well when we're all prepared for it rather than wait until the following morning).

Then there was a lot of waiting around, waiting for the call that we could come in for our ultrasound. The plan was one final ultrasound whenever they could squeeze me in, immediately followed with an NST upstairs, then the midwives would reassess the situation and call us with the news. So much anticipation, the morning took forever to pass by, waiting for this call. It finally comes and the ultrasound is set for 11:30am. Everything went really well, getting there and parking wise (which is half a miracle with us), and we go in to wait.

As per usual, the ultrasound tech brings me in first, leaving Hunter to wait while the measurements are taken. I know the routine by now, so I confirm that the bloodflow looks good, her measurements look good and then they take the fluid measurements. He has to leave the room to confer with the on call doctor, and Hunter comes in to wait with me. There was a nice moment of quiet bonding while we waited, it felt like the calm before the storm and it was sweet to see Evie rolling and moving around in my belly - when the tech came back and showed us her a little, he actually noted that she'd spun to face the total opposite direction in that time, and Hunter had felt the whole thing!

The tech couldn't reveal much, but I did get a confirmation that the fluid was "a little low" (which in tech speak, where they can't confirm anything could be a tiny bit to INDUCE RIGHT NOW, since they can't legally give you anything to panic about), but he said something about 10cm. That was strange, because the week before they had said 7cm - usually fluid doesn't raise at this point in pregnancy, and certainly not if we were worried about low fluid. Hmmm... I decided not to get our hopes up and figured they probably just measured differently this time, since he said "still low" I was taking that as not looking good.

So off we went upstairs for the NST, which went well (no squirmy baby kicking off the sensors this time), and she even got hiccups during it. They were so loud over the heartrate monitor the nurses could hear it down the hall! We sat there, just anxiously waiting, and I texted my doula about what was going on - she was actually in the hospital with another family, so she popped over to say hello while we waited! It was so nice to see her, and she really calmed my fears about the seemingly likely induction, so that really helped.

Finally, the call comes in, and it is NOT AT ALL what we were expecting!!

The fluid was still low, but considered "on the low side of normal" - whaaaat?! Basically, as you progress in the last weeks of pregnancy, the fluid to baby ratio goes down, so the fluid itself didn't replenish but stayed around the same while baby got bigger - hence, the fluid ratio was back in the normal range! It could also be due to different techs measuring different ways (tech error), but either way - the fluid was normal! This meant not only cancelling the induction set for tomorrow, we could wait for labour to start naturally, but we were no longer considered "high risk" enough to be required to birth in hospital.

WE WERE CLEARED FOR HOMEBIRTH AGAIN!!

Of course this was the best possible outcome, in fact the day before when I was checked and membranes swept I asked about the likelihood of needing induction and she said it all depended on the ultrasound, sometimes there are miracles and I could just be one, but she really doubted it. But I was! Or at least Evie was.

The news was a bit hard to swallow, just the idea of going completely natural, letting labour start naturally, to most likely need induction, you will meet your baby this week, and back again is quite shocking. I had been all geared up to wait it out another 4-6 weeks at 36 weeks, then all that week leading up we were told "sometime this week", now we could possibly be waiting another 4 weeks - it was just a lot. I know my husband was a bit disappointed, he was so excited to meet her, and while I was too, I was excited about being able to go natural with the benefits that go with that, and to be home - it felt like a dream come true! But we were still so unsure about her health (what if this ultrasound was the one that was off??), and if it would still be better to be in hospital... A lot of mixed feelings for sure.

So, to be sure we were ready for a homebirth, we decided to pick up the prenatal records and package we needed to have just in case, and off we were, back home again.

My husband had brought his friend in from out of town to cover his work, since we thought we were having a baby within 48 hours, so instead they decided to go out on the town for a last night out before the baby came, though we didn't know when that would be. I had a long nap and then stayed home to sleep some more, I was exhausted! I did, however, still insert my EPO that night, since it had been part of my routine, and I wanted to talk to my husband about stopping it - in my mind we probably would stop, and just let my body do it's thing naturally, but for whatever reason I decided to keep it up one more night and the following morning - little did I know!

Stay tuned for the birth story in the next post, there will be lots of photos!!
~ The Not-So-Pregnant Doula