Midwife's Report @ 35 Weeks

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I had my 35 week appointment this morning. It didn't go quite as expected--a bit more drama than I would've liked--but ultimately they decided everything is healthy and normal.

It started out as a mostly normal appointment. I've gained a couple more pounds--up to 143 now.

Margie, who I was meeting for the first time, poked around trying to confirm that Beta was head-down. She noted a Braxton-Hicks contraction in response to her poking. I wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't commented. I'll have to try to pay more attention and try to figure out if I'm having them more, but haven't been noticing. She then checked Beta's heartbeat and found that it was in the 170's--rather high. She figured that could be in response to the Braxton-Hicks contraction and decided to check again in a couple minutes.

This was the appointment for them to do the Group B Strep test. When the midwife measured the fundal height, it was only 34 cm--smaller growth than expected. She wondered if this was because the baby was lower in the uterus. When she checked, she determined that the baby was at Station 0--or that yes, it had dropped.

She checked the heartbeat again and found that it was still in the 170's, but as we were listening, it sounded (to me) like it skipped a beat and then dropped dramatically to something that may have been even slower than expected. She had two or three different medical terms for what she heard. She immediately asked me to go to the Birthing Inn to have them monitor the heartbeat for 20-30 minutes where it could be reviewed on the strip for further problems.

So I headed across the street to the Birthing Inn and let them hook me up to a monitor for about half an hour. I even got a wristband while I was there. :) Wendy, one of the other midwives (I'm guessing the one who was already on-call at the Birthing Inn), came by to look at the strip and declared that it was all normal and healthy. No good theories on why we heard the abnormalities in the office, so it is being chalked up to a fluke at this point.

I had been experiencing random pain in one of my front teeth off and on over the past 3 weeks or so. So I had made an appointment to get it checked this morning as well. Having to go on the fetal monitor at the Birthing Inn meant that I was late for my appointment at the dentist, but I was able to call them from the Birthing Inn and let them know I'd stop by when I could and see if I could still get in. I ended up only being about 20 minutes late and they had arranged for me to have a longer appointment anyway so that they would have time to do work, if needed, before the 3-day weekend.

The pain I'd been experiencing was definitely not associated with any of the normal triggers--it never occurred while I was eating or doing anything particular. The dentist avoided taking x-rays, since I am expecting, but poked and tested other ways. He decided that I was probably gritting my teeth (due to stress) and that the way my teeth met in the front put extra pressure on the nerves in that tooth, causing the random pain. He did a bit of grinding on those two teeth to try to change the pressure points in hopes of relieving the pains. He suggested we may want to pursue some orthodontic work, after the baby arrives, to try to address the problem a bit more at the root level.