34 week appointment

I had my 34 week appointment today - the first time I have ever not seen my doctor and saw a nurse practitioner instead. I'm trying not to think about this too much because it's a bit late for second thoughts, but I enjoyed the way the NP seemed to take a real interest in me, ask me questions, listen, and explain things... much more than Dr. J does. Oh well.

First surprise: I seem to have gained 3.5 more lbs in two weeks! I have felt like I haven't grown at all lately so I didn't expect that. It's possible that my Uggs were tipping the scales a bit, I don't know. No big deal... I'm up somewhere around 20-25 lbs and that's good. In fact that NP told me my weight gain has been fine overall, which is the first thing I've heard about my weight the entire time.

A student NP was there along with the "real" NP so maybe she was giving me more attention for her benefit. They felt for the baby's head and he's definitely still head down, no doubt about that. They measured my belly and amazingly I am measuring right on track for the first time ever. I don't know whether this is because someone else was doing the measuring, or whether Miles just changed position. I mentioned to the NP that I've been measuring ahead all along and she said it looked like he was taking up room side-to-side, even though his head is down.

He feels lower to me, but she didn't say he had dropped... in fact she said he was sitting up pretty high too, for a head-down baby. So she felt around a bit to try to identify body parts and she basically said he is just all stretched out in every direction and taking up as much room as possible, haha. I can definitely attest to that - I usually feel him pressing his butt out to one side and his feet out to the other.

The student NP then tried to listen to the heartbeat and she really didn't know what she was doing, poor girl. I never appreciated how good at finding the heartbeat Dr. J is until I saw this girl attempt it. She was on the wrong side at first, then way too high, then trying to listen to a faint heartbeat sound since she was still too high.... I guess the NP thought I might be worrying that there was no heartbeat - but I wasn't, because I could feel him kicking - because she told me she could feel him moving and then she took over the Doppler. Found the heartbeat down low, and the student was like, "Is it 180? That seems high," and the NP said, "No... I'm getting 144." Ha. She also said it was a very nice, strong heartbeat.

So... next appointment is 36 weeks. That's when I get my Group B Strep test. The vaginal & anal swabs, oh joy. They tried to mentally prepare me for a positive by telling me it's common and not a big deal... which I do know... but one thing I hadn't thought about much is that if I am positive, they won't let me labor at home for very long. I understand the importance of this; I have heard a birth story where a woman who was GBS+ had such a short labor she didn't even have time to get her antibiotics, and the baby had to spend time in the NICU as a result. So I don't want to mess around with that. But I will be disappointed if that's the case. I'll have to talk to our doula about just mentally helping me not be stressed out by going to the hospital early. My fear is being coaxed into augmentation because I'm "progressing too slowly" if I go in early.

After that appointment I'm in the home stretch and will see the doctor once a week. Yay!