34 Weeks 1 day

I had my OB appt this afternoon.  It was supposed to be your standard in/out appt but turned into a two hour appt instead.  Charlie has never been much of a mover.  I can get him to shift if I poke at him, I see his little feet and butt come up a lot, and he gets hiccups a few times a day but that's about the extent of his movement.  Every appt Dr. Schropp checks his movement and every time I tell him he's not much of a mover but he IS moving.  Today Dr. Schropp said he was just not happy with that response any longer, that by now we should feel 3-4 movements an hour and he should have active times.  So he wants me to start doing NSTs twice a week and coming to see him once a week.  I had my first NST today which was boring but relaxing.  The office was booked up so they sent me across the hall to labor and delivery - which I love the L&D at Midlands.  Their rooms are so huge and the kids got to watch TV the whole time.  It took them over an hour to get a good strip on Charlie, but so far he looks okay.  He had the hiccups for the first few minutes of the NST which was hilarious to listen to.  The kids got a kick out of that.  I also was displaying mid-range contractions on the monitor (the little gauge thing was getting in the 50's), so I'm supposed to try to take it easy and rest when I'm having them.  Otherwise everything looks pretty good.  They started registering me as well so I'll have less to do when I go into labor.  They are just totally awesome, and I'm really going to hate not being here with future children.

We also cleared it with the nurses for taking the placenta home.  Chris doesn't want to encapsulate it himself so he's hiring a specialist to come to the house when I'm still in the hospital to do it for us.  She wanted us to make sure the hospital didn't have any red tape we needed to jump through.  The nurse told us they marked it in my chart, and that we'd just need to bring a cooler.  They used to have a freezer to store them, but now they just throw them away so they no longer have the freezer available.  They told us they'd supply a container, and ice as well.  I'm really glad they aren't making me feel strange for doing this, they didn't even bat an eye.  Chris told them that we'd also be supplying our own diapers and would not want any disposables being used - and they marked that as well without any issue.

I go back on Tuesday for another NST, and then again on Friday for another NST and an appt.  That's going to be the new schedule until I deliver, which they think may happen in about 3 weeks.