On Friday Arabella wasn't moving much, none of my normal tricks were working I even tried eating sugar, but she didn't want to move. So I ended up in l&d, not long after she was on the monitors she started wiggling away, so I figured we would be out of there pretty fast.
Sigh.
The nurse on duty didn't think Bella was being reactive enough to the movements, meaning her heart rate was too steady. I later found out it's totally normal not to have those fluctuations until 35 weeks. She sent me down for a biophysical profile, which is a detailed ultrasound that checks for fetal movement (3), tone (2), fluid, and practice breathing (15-30 seconds) in 30 minutes. Bella had been moving up a storm for 2-3 hours and then on the way to the ultrasound, NOTHING. I watched the ultrasound screen and she wasnt moving at all. The tech shook my belly, had me change positions, and still not a wiggle. She did eventually give us 3 little wiggles, but no movements showing tone. She did practice breathing which is awesome. I wasn't that worried because she had been kicking earlier. I did however start to notice there was not much fluid and when it came time to measure it, I saw the numbers and they were NOT good.
Upstairs we waited for the results and when they finally came, they were exactly what I thought, Bella was fairly stable, but there was nearly no fluid. We were going to stay over night to be monitored and redo the ultrasound in the morning. If fluid levels were indeed that low, Bella could be coming MUCH sooner than later.
My mind raced with how we would handle the NICU again and silly enough if I would miss the boys first day of school.
As a side note, sleeping with monitors on is IMPOSSIBLE.
Bella got really active overnight and into the next morning. She did the movement and tone portions of the test within minutes and I noticed WAY more areas of fluid. His measurements were WAY higher than the night before. She didnt practice breathing long enough, but they were not concerned as she had 12 hours earlier and at 31 weeks that is normal. When we got up stairs again, the nurse came in and said the tech called her and said that he had no idea what happened last night, but there was plenty of fluid! They said depending on the babies position, they can shove all the fluid to the back and it is not visible. She had indeed totally changed position overnight.
MAJOR relief.
We went from worrying about delivering soon, to just waiting til my next doc appointment to be seen.
I was so happy to be home in my own bed. The only issue I have going on now and have for several days before all this is severe rib pain on my right side. It feels like they are broken! I am carrying SUPER high, the top of my uterus is touching the middle of my ribs. There is just a ton of pressure upwards and no relief in site since Arabella does not seem remotely interested in going head down or even hanging out anywhere near low.
Four and a half to six more weeks to go. EEK.
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