After trying to decipher some blurry black and white images of the baby and sort of making out the head and a leg, the doctor said she needed to talk to us a bit. That immediately made me nervous and as it turns out rightly so. She explained that the amniotic fluid around the baby looked quite low and that the placenta was showing some calcium deposits. Both of these things can be indicators that the baby is done and ready to come out and that perhaps he might not continue to thrive as well in the womb. However, she reassured us that his movements were good, his weight (6 1/2 lbs) was good, and his heart rate was good. So she sent us to a specialist in fetal medicine right away who has more high tech equipment. She said that this doctor will either send me home and tell me not to worry or may tell me that baby boy has to come out today. I wasn't really prepared for that possibility but realized that it doesn't take long to get mentally ready for that. After all, the number one priority is to have a healthy baby so regardless if all else is in place, I was ready to do whatever needed to happen to make sure baby is healthy. Of course all of our nerves were rattled a bit upon hearing the doctor's concerns. I also started to have visions of having to be induced or worse yet, having a c-section and foreseeing all my preparations and wishes for having a natural delivery go down the drain. But, all of our fears were soon erased when the fetal medicine doctor told us that he felt the amniotic fluid levels and placenta looked perfectly fine and normal. With very scientific equipment they can even show the blood flow through the umbilical cord to the baby (it sort of looked like doppler radar that shows weather patterns). And as a bonus we were told that the baby is definitely a boy (so no surprises at delivery) and the baby is head down...way down!
This whole experience made me think of two things. First, I realized that I have very little control over how and when this baby decides to come and how he decides to make his entrance into the world. Of course, on some level I have control of how I want to labor and things I chose to do or not do, but all of that can be irrelevant depending on what's in the baby's best interest. And the other thing that it made me think about is what happened before all this technology entered the world of prenatal care? There is no doubt that sometimes this high tech equipment can result in saved lives of babies and mothers but I bet more often than not, they cause unnecessary worry and concern. After all, moms have been having babies for a very long time without doppler radar ultrasounds!
We never did get any good images of the baby though which apparently get harder to see this late into pregnancy but my mom still asked for a print out of an image to take home like a souvenir. The doctor looked at her like she was nuts given the images looked like a whole bunch of nothing to the untrained eye but he printed her out a picture of the baby's heart and knowing my mom, she'll treasure that until the baby makes his grand entrance.
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