When I arrived, I was weighed by a nurse and my blood pressure was taken before it was time to listen to our baby’s heartbeat. Apparently our little one’s heartbeat was lower than normal (averaging 115 – 120 bpm). Another nurse came in to listen to the heartbeat and then the doctor came in after that to listen and told me they wanted to hook me up to a monitor for a while just to see how everything was going.
I was told to hit a button every time I felt our baby move while relaxing in a recliner. I flipped on the TV in the private room to try to distract myself, but my mind was all over the place and I ended up texting back and forth with Ryan, my mom and sister the whole time to keep them up to speed. About 15 minutes into this, a nurse came in and told me they wanted to observe me for a little while longer, so I stayed in the chair and prayed for everything to be okay.
I was then escorted into a private waiting room until my doctor was able to meet with me again. She said that the baby’s heart rate was low (120-ish), but all the movement I felt while I was being monitored made her think our baby was likely just relaxing and perfectly fine in my belly. We started to continue on with my routine appointment and when my doctor measured my belly, she said I am measuring small. My measurements didn’t show any belly growth since 32 weeks when I was already measuring a week behind. My doctor then said she wanted me to have an ultrasound to get a better feel for how our baby is growing and developing.
More praying and texting with my family occurred, but all of the rolls and kicks I felt from our little guy while I sat in the waiting room eased my mind a little bit and I just tried to focus on his active movements.
Eventually I made my way into the ultrasound room where I was prepped and the ultrasound technician squirted the warm gel on my belly. Our baby immediately flashed on the screen and I swear I could’ve stared at that fuzzy black and while screen for hours. Our baby!
The ultrasound technician measured his head and abdomen and immediately eased my mind by saying he looked great! She estimated that our baby weighs right around 4.75 pounds (the 30th percentile for weight at this point) and though he’s a little on the small side, his measurements look perfectly healthy! (His heartbeat also seemed to come back up into the 140s, which was a relief as well.) My belly is measuring small, but my doctor thinks this could be, in large part, due to my super long torso. He just has more room to spread out!
I also got to learn exactly how our baby is positioned. He’s head down and facing my back, so his little booty is right above my belly button. The ultrasound technician also flipped back and forth to the 3D imaging which was absolutely unreal.
I saw our baby’s face and he looks so adorable!
(In the below pic half of his face is covered but I tried to make it easy to see his eyes, nose and mouth.)
Check out his pouty lips!!!
I love this little dude so much already. He’s definitely keeping me on my toes already but I am so grateful everything looked healthy in the end. This afternoon’s appointment gave me a healthy dose of perspective. I’ve been increasingly frustrated with my lack of mobility and the intense sacroiliac pain I’m experiencing, but I would deal with all of it 10,000 times over if it means our baby is safe and healthy.
Breakfast + Lunch
Backing up a bit…
Breakfast this morning included a strawberry banana smoothie.
I blended up a cup of strawberry Greek yogurt, frozen strawberries, a frozen banana, a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach, a spoonful of almond butter and coconut milk. It was sweet and filling!
After breakfast, I worked through the morning before inhaling a snack (half of a pb&j + some grapes) and heading to my prenatal appointment. After my doctor’s appointment, I grabbed a late lunch from the Whole Foods salad bar to eat while typing up this blog post.
And now it’s time for me to head to my physical therapy appointment. I am really hoping to learn some stretches and exercises that might be able to alleviate some of this pain!
Hope you guys are having a good Tuesday so far!
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