Yesterday I had my weekly midwife appointment, plus I had a non-stress test to make sure Brooke is doing well. They hooked me up to a heart rate monitor to check her heart rate for 20 minutes. They were checking to make sure her heart rate doesn't dip down and also that it spikes a few times within the 20 minutes. Brooke's heart rate was looking really good, which I wasn't surprised about. Then they did an ultrasound to measure the amount of amniotic fluid around her. The ultrasound machine they used wasn't the super good one, so it was hard to make out different body parts. For some reason, I wasn't as excited to see her on the ultrasound this time, and I think it's because I see her so much from the outside that I feel like I get to see her every day, so the ultrasound didn't really provide me with a new experience. The amniotic fluid measurement also came back normal. So Brooke is all good!! I wasn't worried though. For some reason, I really don't think she's going to have any issues. I think she's going to be just fine.
My blood pressure at my appointment was a little high (143/83), so they took it again after my appointment after I rested for a couple of minutes, and then it was a little better (126/90), but the systolic and diastolic pressures kind of swapped. This has happened at home before, but I have no idea why. My body is weird. But they didn't seem too concerned as long as the non-stress test came back fine. I think as long as my BP stays below 150/100, they won't get too concerned, so let's pray that it doesn't.
I have another non-stress test on Friday morning where they will just do the heart rate monitoring. I then have 2 more next Tuesday and Friday to repeat the tests, as well as my usual weekly appointment on Tuesday. I will have one last appointment on the Tuesday before I am induced and at that point they will see if there is something they can do to try to get labor started before my induction, since I would prefer not to get pitocin (or any kinds of drugs for that matter), which is what they use for inductions. The midwife said that if I'm dilated enough, they will be able to sweep the membranes to try to get labor started. I don't know all the details of what that entails, but it's supposed to get the cervix more ready for labor and hopefully get my body to start labor on its own. Let's hope it works if we get that far!
I'm really hoping to go into labor by myself sometime next week, but I have no control over that, so we'll see :) Of course, I really only want to go into labor if Brooke is big enough and doing well, so I'm okay with waiting if she's not ready. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell! 15 days left at most. It's not much time but it still seems like a while to me. It's like counting down to a long-awaited vacation. It never seems close enough even when it's just a day away. So I'll just try my best to focus on one day at a time instead of the end date. Hopefully that works!
I have noticed lately that my rings have been a little harder to get on and off, and I just had to take off my watch because it was digging into my wrist. And this morning when I was putting lotion on my legs, I thought that the top of my right foot might look a tiny bit swollen, but it was hard to tell. I know that swelling is a normal sign of late pregnancy, so I don't think that has a correlation with the blood pressure, but I will keep an eye on it just in case. If it gets bad, it could indicate a problem. My BP has been in the 130s/80s at home for the past 2 days, which is high for being at home, so it's possible that it could continue to go up. We'll see. I really hope it doesn't.
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