Good appointment today. Little man was lazy again and had to be buzzed several times to move while being monitored. His heartrate was in the 170’s for a while, but no one seemed to think anything about it.

My BP was in the same range of high, but not as scary as it has been. They always take it twice now, so today’s readings were 156/97 and 150/99. The response to this is: “meh”. Oh, and I lost three pounds since last week – that also didn’t really elicit a response. (But hey, my a1c is 5.7 – so HOORAY for excellent diabetes control!)

Amniotic fluid was even less today though. The nurse worked and worked to find pockets of fluid to measure, couldn’t find the required number of pockets for the full measurement, but calculated it at 6 based on the largest pocket she could find, down from 9.6 on Monday. And again, they wanna see 14. So yeah, I’ve been put on notice for that. I’m drinking. I really am. But now I’m chugging. If it’s lower on Friday, I get sent to the hospital for more intensive monitoring. I’m chugging, cuz I don’t want that. I want another weekend at home.

Dr. Schwartz entered the monitoring room asking “What are you doing still pregnant? I thought you weren’t gonna get this far!” So yay for levity. He’s impressed as hell that I’m still doing my Easy-Bake thing but thinks the end is getting close. My labs from Monday were all good, but things in general are just continuing on a not-good vector, so he wants to have a plan in place. To that end:

NEXT Monday (not this coming Monday, but the one after that) June 21 will put me at 36w2d. 36 weeks is the magic number for pulling the baby with essentially no guilt – the beginning of diminishing returns to my health for keeping the baby inside. On the morning of the 21st, Dr. Schwartz will do an amniocentesis to measure the maturity of the little man’s lungs. The results will be back that afternoon (fast, right?) and assuming everything looks good (which we expect it to because of the steroid injections I got last week) Paul and I will arrive at the hospital at 8:00pm that night to start the induction.

The induction process will take a while. Like overnight for sure. In the morning they’ll check me, hopefully find me 4cm dilated or better and they can start the pitocin. If I’m not dilated 4cm on Tuesday morning, they’ll give me a 2nd dose of Cervadil and let me go another 12 hours. So that part alone just to get me dilated a bit could take 24 hours. The pitocin could take 24 hours on it’s own too before things really get going – although we hope it won’t. (Cuz let’s not forget that I’m not allowed to have anything to eat or drink anything once I arrive at the hospital to start the induction. Ice chips: that’s it. Glucose and insulin IVs. yum.) I’m planning on getting an epidural, so there’s a hope that my being relaxed and pain-free will help the pitocin work quickly and get labor moving. Where it goes from there, we have no idea. Go with the flow will be the rule of the day.

So we’re looking at probably at June 22 or June 23 birthday for our little man. This of course assumes that things stay copacetic for another week. I’m still being monitored three times a week and at any time Dr. Schwartz says he could send me across the street to the hospital for more in-depth monitoring is something goes pear-shaped.

A bit of good news though: our little guy won’t be a preemie. Now that we’re past 34 weeks, he’ll be pre-term, but not a preemie. And at 36 weeks or later, there’s at least a chance that he won’t have to go to the NICU, meaning he can come home with us when I’m discharged! No way to know how things will go until he gets here, but we’re thrilled with our chances of our little guy not going to the NICU.

So that’s where we stand now. One more week of holding on, hoping to keep my BP where it is and keep my labs steady. But OMG, in like a week and a half, we’ll have a baby!!!

(NTS: figure out a dang name! and find a pediatrician!)

To recap BP over the last few weeks for perspective: