34 weeks and still internal, yay!

So, I'm happy to report that after a spotting scare last Tuesday, coupled with groin pain and rectal pressure, Stephanie and baby are still 2-in-1. She called the midwives, they said that it could probably wait until our routine appointment the following day, but that if there was more spotting that she should go ahead and head to labor and delivery to be checked. There was more spotting, so she called me and I booked it back to Seattle (I was just done with office hours in Tacoma), which took about an hour due to rush hour traffic entering the city, and then we went in to triage at the birth center.

There, Stephanie got hooked up to a fetal heartrate and contraction monitor, which verified that our baby was doing well and still very active (including kicking at the monitor and moving out of range). The midwife on call took a group b strep culture and did a cervical exam, which showed a nice tight non-effaced cervix which is not at all threatening to release the baby anytime soon. Yay! The groin pain was probably round ligament pain, and the source of the spotting was either no longer visible by the time we made it there, or... well, a picture is worth a thousand words.



I stocked up on prune juice and metamucil and soothing ointment the next day... by which point everything had improved, of course!

Still, very glad we went in, just to be sure. Stephanie tested negative on group B strep, which is great, and also we had a preview of what the admit procedures for labor and delivery are, so it'll be much more familiar when we go in for real. Like now Stephanie has figured out how the hospital gowns go on, and we also know what a fire drill sounds like because they had one when we were checking in. (Better not happen when we're in labor!)

Our appointment the following day we covered our birthplan with our favorite of the midwives. (They're all great, but one is our extra-favorite.) She seemed really impressed that we had the birthplan done already - how prepared! How organized! If only she'd seen our baby clothing database (a big spreadsheet with all the height/weight/pattern/motif data). But everything in the birth plan is totally fine, including the fact that I want to (help) catch the baby, which was the one thing we were thinking might not fly.

In the meantime, we've been enjoying the freedom of having the baby still internal by going to lots of movies at the Seattle International Film Festival. Today, we went to brunch to visit the new grandkid of family friends who played an aunt and uncle role in my life growing up. The baby is super adorable and this photo was snapped:


Afterwards, we went to a BBQ and I got a chance to hang out with the girls I nannied for a few weeks last summer, reminding me how much I love playing with and talking to kids. I was playing with the 5-year-old in the front yard when new guests came and I got introduced by, "This is Jenny! And she has a friend! Her name is Stephanie! And Stephanie has a baby! But it's still inside!"

Which is pretty much all there is to say about that!