12 Days To Go...

...If he decides to stay on board awhile longer! Could be any day or could be another 3 weeks!

Breastfeeding class was fine. I don't think I learned anything though. But that's what happens when you spend basically the last nearly 2 years reading up on these things. My latest delve is "Saying No To Vaccines" by Dr. Sherry Tenpenny. Wow! What a resource. It is pretty clinical, but I am still half way through. Very interesting stuff and info I feel everyone should know, not just parents facing the decision of whether to vaccinate their children, and if so, how much, which ones and when. Everyone should read this book.

But back to this week's haps. We also had our 38 week appointment yesterday, before our 2nd birth class. It was actually a bit of a CF if you ask us. It's kind of a long story. We had a very unnecessary "scare". Basically the Midwife thought his heartbeat was pretty low a couple times with the doppler. He was moving around while she was trying to find it, so much so that my stomach was rolling before our eyes. Nonetheless, she thought we should use the fetal monitor for a 30 minute non-stress-test to get a better picture. I was a little freaked and felt like she was not directly telling us what might be happening. I appreciate her trying to keep things light and not cause undue stress, but in that type of situation, you just want straight forwardness.

So we go upstairs and hook me up to the monitor. She sets it on my right side and we can hear a very regular heartbeat. At this point she is feeling better, but is watching for certain peaks or raises to confirm a certain level of response from him. He gave us some peaks but apparently they weren't as tall as she would like to see. Then she steps from the room to go downstairs. (Turns out she's calling the Nurse on-call for her opinion.) As soon as she steps away the heartbeat disappears-he's moved to the other side. So Jack gets up and gets a closer look at the monitor and the read out to this point. He notes to me that the pattern to right before we lost him entirely is not random at all, and looks very much like something is not hooked up right.

Upon returning to the room, we promptly tell her what's happened. While she is preparing to and moving the monitor to the other side she is telling us that she and the Nurse feel I should go across to the hospital for 2 hours of monitoring! So as I am fighting tears, Jack is praying and she is resetting the monitor. Boom, there's our Baby Boy! Loud and strong and regular with beautiful peaks and an abundance of movement! The Midwife states that everything is beautiful and that she really thinks he was just resting or sleeping....

We have a different theory: We think she plain jumped the gun. We think her doppler exam was hap hazard as he was moving all over. And then we think the monitor was not set up right or in the right place for the first part of the test. We stayed on for another 30 minutes after the change and he was perfect.

They of course withdrew the recommendation of hospital monitoring. But did ask me to come back tomorrow (Friday) for another test with them. Our theory on this is that they are just looking to save face. I mean, sure, they were concerned and felt they had reason to be. But if there was a real threat we either would have been sent to the hospital, or at the very least they would have wanted me back today, not Friday.

Jack was pretty bent about the whole thing. We in no way are questioning our care. At all. We feel the same situation could easily happen in a more medicalized environment and that the outcome would likely have been more invasive, even possibly to a major fault. We appreciate the Midwife's concern and the Nurse's safe is better than sorry approach. But we don't entirely agree with the diluted information and skirting of questions that occurred in the process. I will very likely be talking to them about it after we have the Baby. I think it is something she has already learned from, as she actually apologized to us three times. But I do want to make sure she gets some feedback on that. If I was a Midwife or any caregiver, I would want to know how the people felt so I could do better next time.

I am not one tiny bit nervous about tomorrow. I am just irritated that I have to drive back down there tomorrow! This will be the third time this week. And I feel it is not needed. However, if I refuse it, they may require it anyway. And this is because Colorado is very much in control of the Center and they must abide by the State regulations over them or be shut down. So I totally get it.

So that's what happened. And after all that, we did make our class, but I was a little blah-ed out over the whole fiasco. Oh well, it's over!

I love this Baby Boy so much. I can't wait til he is old enough for me to tell him these stories! This post could get really long, if I add in about some recent videos we've watched and other tid bits. So I'll just stop here and maybe save that for the 39 week entry!

Thanks for reading. I sure do love you all. XOXOX