Baby With Flat Hat update, part the gazillionth

Today I spent several hours at the university health center (and environs, since I needed to eat at some point) attending three inconveniently spaced appointments. Scheduling anything related to this baby seems to be like herding cats; more on that soon. Anyway, first of all I had the nonstress test, in which I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and asked to press a button every time she moved to see if her heartrate went up when she moved, which it's supposed to do. It facilitates this procedure if the baby moves. My daughter is not a morning person. The nurse gave me some grape juice, though, at which point she perked up and said "I love JUICE!" and had all kinds of heartrate-boosting movement, some of which I even felt. So that is good.

I ate lunch, then went back for a short ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid level, which is fine. And she's still a girl, or if she's not they decided not to disabuse me of that notion before I find out in person.

Then I went upstairs very early for my 41 week appointment, was surprised to be admitted to the exam room early, and then less surprised when I ended up sitting there for half an hour in a stuffy room on the edge of the exam table with a glorified paper towel over the lower half of my body and my back hurting like crazy from the exam table's failure to be a comfy chair like the ones in the waiting room I'd rather have been sitting in. Maybe I should bring this up in the telephone surveys I keep getting from Yale Health Services about appointments I can't remember because they were short and three weeks ago and I've had other appointments since then.

So, finally a doctor emerged and gave me an internal. I am 80% effaced. Progress! But still no dilation, and the baby's head is still not fully engaged. Well, I wouldn't want to stick my head in someone else's pelvis, either. At this point, if they want to induce me by 42 weeks (remember, ignore the ticker if you're a doctor and all women have 28-day cycles; I was due almost a week ago), they have to schedule me soon. I have mixed feelings about inductions, like 1. I was born four weeks late and I turned out fine, so what's the rush? and besides, I've heard the contractions are worse on pitocin, and they often end in c-sections especially if the baby's not really ready, which she's not, and sometimes they just fail, in like a big icanhascheezburger conehead-cat that can't eat its food FAIL. type of way, and they can take forever (my sister's induction = 36 hours of labor, etc.), and, etc., but 2. gee, it would be nice to have a baby, for a couple of personal reasons besides the obvious impatience with being pregnant and wanting one, some of them not so significant in the big scheme of things (my sister's here from the 14th to the 19th and it'd be nice if I were home with the baby by then), some really important to us (like Justin's Gomma meeting her first great-grandchild before she passes away, which is looking inevitable and soon).

So. At first they were trying to schedule me for another AFI/NST on Monday and an induction toward the middle/end of the week. But apparently the hospital is having trouble scheduling me for anytime except maybe Tuesday/Wednesday. How hospitals have trouble scheduling inductions when presumably they have to accommodate anyone who, like, goes into labor on her own is beyond me, but apparently it truly is that complicated. So now the plan is for me not to have anything on Monday, to go in Tuesday at some yet-to-be-determined time to get gel to thin my cervix, sleep at home that night, and then come back in on Wednesday to get the show on the road. We hope. (Justin has a light class schedule on Wednesday, which is a small perk to this plan.)

If that confused you, imagine how I explained it to Justin, who has a project due on Tuesday and wants to know when the baby is coming. Despite all this attempted scheduling (FAIL.), she is a baby, so I don't know. Maybe before Tuesday. But definitely (probably) within a week.