Musings of a Marfan Mom

Monday we left off when my OB was preparing me for the possibility of delivering Smudge that afternoon.

I headed up to Labor & Delivery, called Mark to come sit with me, called our doula to be on alert, and settled in with the monitors. Almost immediately the nurse, who had seen me in the ER when we were concerned about a dissection, asked me when my induction date was. When I explained to her that VBACs can’t be induced with pit (and I’m barely 37 weeks!), her face fell for a moment. Within a moment it had brightened again as she said “Oh! Well, that’s great! Then they can schedule a c-section for you!”

Sigh.

I told her that’s not the plan for me, I had complications with my c-section, they’re contraindicated for Marfan patients like me. I think I just offended her though, because she replied “Well! MOST women like to know exactly when their baby is coming but apparently not all of them! Either way you won’t go past 41 wks.”

After an hour and a half on the monitor I asked to go to the bathroom. When I came back I was told that whoops, I was supposed to be on the monitor for two hours continuously! So, my 2 hours would have to restart. Mark and I didn’t leave the hospital till 8 pm, but at least Smudge had a good report. He’d only had one decel during that time, and only to 90. But, I still had to come back Saturday and Sunday to repeat the tests.

Saturday went well but Sunday had a small hitch. A resident came in and stopped the NST a little early because Smudge was doing well. She pulled up the ultrasound machine to do my AFI, and I informed her that since yesterday’s reading was a 10 (normal is 8-18, but 8-10 is normal for this late in pregnancy) I wasn’t sure I needed another test. She did one though, because my OB insisted. Well, right off the bat she tells me my baby’s butt is in the lower right quadrant.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “He’s been head down pretty consistently since 24 weeks. He was head down yesterday!”

No, no, she insisted he was now either transverse or breech. She pointed out his heart to me. Kept searching for his head. Couldn’t find his head. Did another full scan of my belly. No head. After about 3 minutes of searching she finally realized WHOOPS! The baby’s “butt” WAS his head! Or maybe what she thought was the shoulder was the head? Either way, baby was still in vertex position.

Then, she announced my fluid was only 6-7 and this was concerning, especially since I’d been at 10 the night before. I was SO CLOSE to saying “Look, you couldn’t tell my son’s rear end from his head. I am not too confident you can measure his fluid correctly.” Instead I suggested she redo the test, and she got an 8.2: normal. But no, she was still worried! And this time I did speak up and inform her my test was just fine and she agreed, but still wanted to check with the attending, just in case. I had to wait for a birth to be finished before I was allowed to go. I imagine the attending gave her a hard time about it, or at least I kind of hope so.

Yesterday I had another round of NSTs/AFIs (to get back on my regular twice a week schedule) and everything was fabulous, so I’m assuming the worrisome decels we saw on Friday were just a fluke. I pray that Smudge continues to do well until he decides to grace us all with his appearance!