What is a Non stress test during pregnancy?

A non stress test is a monitoring test that is used sometimes during pregnancy. Usually used in the later part of pregnancy,or if there is a complication such a Gestational Diabetes, the test is used to monitor who the baby is doing inside the mothers uterus.

The test involves putting a monitor on the outside of the woman and measuring the heart rate and movement of the baby. Below is a small write up on what the test involves.

"If your baby's heart beats faster (at least 15 beats per minute over his resting rate) while he's moving for at least 15 seconds on two separate occasions during a 20-minute span, the result is normal, or "reactive." A normal result means that your baby is probably doing fine for now. Your practitioner may want to repeat the test every week (or more often) until your baby's born." Taken from babycenter.com

Who's up for a trip to the Doctors?

So MW went for her OB appointment today and got a line up of all the times she will have to go to the Doctors for the next month, man does having Gestational Diabetes bump up your doctors vists.

1 visit a week with the OB/GYN until birth

1 visit a week with the Endocrinologist for the Gestational Diabetes until birth

2 vists a week for a non stress test (more to follow)

and 1 more follow up visit with the nutritionalist

All added up that is 18 doctors appointments in the next month and a half. A little overwhelming! That being said everything is going well with the little guy so thats a plus.

For those of you who end up having a schedule like this don't get overwhelmed. Take a minute, take a breath and then push forward. Do something that is relaxing for you and for your partner and just remember that it helps the baby and you can get through it

Glucose Results

MW and I spend all of Saturday morning in the Beverly Hospital lab fasting and getting blood drawn to do our second glucose test. Because MW got 1 pt above the max on the first test this tset was to further check on the possibility of Gestational Diabetes.

The lab called this morning and told us that MW was above the glucose levels on her first two blood tests during the 3 hr test. What does this mean? Before we go into what it means lets go into how the body works.

Insulin is the hormone central to the metabolization of carbohydrates and fast in the body. In the simplest term Insulin is what metabolizes sugar. Insulin is made in the Pancreas and moved throughout the body to metabolize sugars (glucose) into a storable/usable energy source (glycogen). When pregnant the Pancreas has to produce around 3X the normal amount of insulin due to the other hormones in the body.

MW is just on the borderline of keeping up with her insulin needs. So technically that means she has Gestational Diabetes. So what does this mean?

First off is a trip to the doctors/dietitian. Because her levels are so borderline MW's GD (I am going to shorten it as its a pain to type Gestational Diabetes) can be controlled by diet and exercise. Working with her doctor and dietitian we will be able to put together a diest and exercise program that will keep her sugar at an acceptable level.

GD is not the end of the world! It affects 1-3% of all pregnant woman. This is why the hospital does tests such as this. Now they will be able to keep an eye on MW and make sure that everything goes wonderfully with JW's birth. For those of you who want a little more info on GD here are a couple links.

http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/women/pregnancy/complications/075.html

http://diabetes.webmd.com/guide/gestational_diabetes

Thats the nitty gritty of it. I will post more after our trip to the doctors.

Good news!

So great news everyone, the perinatologist couldn't even find an ecogenic focus on the ultrasound. They had much better equipment and the hospital and a much much much better tech doing the procedure. So we have a nice normal baby with no problems on the ultrasound woohoo!

The appointment yesterday prompted me to do a post about technicians, such as our wonderful ultrasound tech yesterday.

It can be a little nerve wracking to go into a procedure like that. You just want to make sure that everything is going well with the baby and all that, often leaving you a little nervous to talk to the tech. Always talk to the tech. The tech should be explaining everything they are doing to you. Yes they are there to get the scans, but they are also there to help educate you on what's going on with your baby.

The second ultrasound we had should have been a really exciting thing! And it was, except we got little to no information from the technician. She just sat there silently snapping scan after scan. She may have said 4 sentences to us. Thank God MW's mom was there to help walk us through everything. Not a good experience, but we didn't know if that was normal or if the tech would have been annoyed by our questions

The third ultrasound was the exact opposite of that. Our tech was fantastic! Her, along with an observing med student, talked us through everything that she was doing. She explained what everything was and what she was doing when she was taking her scans. She asked us about the tech who did the scans at the midwife office and was rather confused when we said we had none of our questions answered and that the previous tech didn't even get all of the scans needed.

Overall the third ultrasound was a fantastic experience, although we did have an hour delay. The best thing I can say to everyone out there is ask questions! If you want to know something or aren't getting the info you think you need, ask them. After all its your baby!

Level 2 ultrasound

MW and I heard about our level 2 ultrasound today. Many people don't get a level 2 ultrasound, but our midwife wanted us to get it to make sure that the Echogenic Focus they picked up on the regular ultrasound was nothing to worry about. We go on the 14th of April to see a specialist (perinatologist) and get our scan. I will update you when it happens.

When it comes to extra things like this something that pops up is money. It's very hard for many people to think of money when a procedure is recommended by a health care provider, especially when it is regarding your baby. However if you don't think about money now then it will come back to bite you in the ass later on. If you have insurance please remember to contact your provider and find out exactly what they cover in regards to scans and secondary testing. Just something to keep in mind while dealing with money is to take a second and think about whats going on. In my case usually it works itself out and I end up feeling ok about money.

Our first Midwife appointment

The event that made the whole process very real to both myself and MW was the first appointment with the midwife. We made an appointment that was about a week out from when we took the pregnancy test at home (we had only told one person each so that we wouldn't have to keep it a secret). That week was one of the toughest weeks to get through in my entire life.

Once we finally got to the day of the appointment it was very reminiscent of Christmas day. MW took the entire day off, but I went to work in the morning. MW picked me up from work at noon and it was such an excitement-tinged ride to the midwife. We really had zero idea of what was going to happen, we hadn't even told our parents yet.

That being said it was an interesting first interaction at the midwife. The nurse took us in and took the normal measurements, height, weight, age, family history. The nurse was slightly on the talkative side, but it seemed to calm me a bit. The Irish way of dealing with anything seems to be to just talk, luckily our Italian/Greek nurse happened to have the same way of breaking the tension!

Once the midwife did arrive it was a very relaxed atmosphere, mostly consisting of question and answer. At this point in the process it's good to ask ALL questions. The phrase "there are no stupid questions" definitely applies here (although I don't think it necessarily does at other points.) Nothing that you ask is going to surprise these people, its their job. Also the silliest questions may be very intelligent questions that will really help you understand the process.

We left the examination room that day with information on everything from genetic tests that can be done, exercise expectations, to food that you should avoid/utilize.

Do not expect to know everything leaving the doctors office that day. The second I left I thought of 100 questions I should have asked. Just take in the day, write down your questions, and ask the next time you go to the doctors.

The next step is the ultrasound.....but thats a different post