I'll keep this one short. I had a prenatal appointment this morning. Peek-A-Boo is still growing and kicking on schedule. I asked the midwife, Amie, if there was any way to speed up this process and she gave me a serious answer instead of a fun one :( She's the newest midwife, so I can see how she wouldn't want to give me the wrong impression :)
Simply because I'm 35, standard prenatal recommendations include 2 more ultrasounds over the next 4 weeks and after that, a WEEKLY non-stress test until the baby is born (a non-stress test is essentially me lying on a table for 30 minutes while they monitor the baby's movement and heart rate). Yikes! That's a heap of appointments! I am perfectly free to decline any or all of these additional tests, and I'm thinking I will because:
1. I have a low risk history when it comes to growing and delivering babies.
2. Peek-a-Boo's growth and heart rate have been right in line with expectations up to this point.
3. Oodles of women for generations have delivered babies in their mid-to-late thirties without incident.
4. The highest risk is associated with women 40+ years old who are carrying their first child.
And who the heck wants to hang out at the OB's office every week for the next 9 weeks?! Arranging childcare for that alone would stress me out.
I told Amie I was leaning towards "no" for the extra tests and she suggested I start taking "kick counts" every day. That's where I lie down and count how many times the baby moves in a certain period of time. Anything over 10 kicks an hour is okay...um...Peek-A-Boo pretty much kicks me 10 times every chance I get to sit down. We're good for now, I guess :)
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