Trip to Labor and Delivery 12/18/06

Well, we spent 5 hours at Labor and Delivery today - but no baby. It was a long day of waiting and waiting...doesn't Marc look excited?

I had a NST this morning and the doc was concerned with the fact that the baby's hearbeat was quite low during a very mild contraction. So, off we went for more tests at the hospital.

I was hooked up to the fetal monitor for at least 3 hours and the baby performed great. I also had another ultrasound, which showed that the baby is doing fine despite my continuing low fluid (7.4 cm today). The doctor believes that the low fluid and the low fetal heartrate are due to placental insufficiency, a common side effect of Gestational Diabetes. She thinks that my placenta is beginning to burn out and that it is only a matter of time before conditions inside become less than favorable for our little dude.

We can tell that the doc believes this baby should come out soon, but since all of the tests show that he is still doing okay, we wait. She was hesitant to induce labor today because my cervix is really not showing any signs of being ready and inducing at this stage would most likely put me into a c-section. (We'd all like to avoid that if we can!) In addition, GD babies have immature lungs, so the longer we keep him in the better. The doc did say that if I were already 2-3 cm dialated, I probably would have been induced today. But, I'm not - so we wait. I have more rounds of tests on Wednesday and on Friday.

We are slightly disappointed after spending much of the day thinking - "He's coming! We finally get to meet him!" - but we obviously want what is best for our little man so we are content to wait. At least we've had a trial run and know the routine at the hospital. Our bags are packed, in the car, and we're ready to go when the time comes!