Non-responsive.

I'm still only dilated to around a 1. The doctor said that my cervix wasn't even open enough to try to strip my membranes. I begged and pleaded for her to induce me, and she laughed and said no. Not this week. Instead she said we could talk about it next week after weighing the risks (lung maturity, etc.) In the meantime she encouraged me to walk as much as I wanted, to try to help open my cervix more.

Patrick worked from home today so that he could go with me to the doctor's office. I noticed that I'd been feeling Julian move a lot less lately. I thought that perhaps he was just running out of room, but it was concerning. At my doctor's appointment today, I mentioned it in passing and she said she wanted me to have a non-stress test in the office before we left. So they strapped me up with the monitors, and started the test. The baby was sleeping, I guess because he wasn't very active. The nurse brought me a package of Lorna Doone shortbread cookies, and asked me to eat them - hoping it would wake him up a bit. It didn't. Next was a giant bottle of ice water which also didn't work. Finally, they gave me some apple juice and that also didn't seem to stir him much. In total, he moved twice in about thirty minutes. The nurse took the report out to the doctor. The doctor came in and said "I need you to go to the hospital for more monitoring." I laughed - thinking she was teasing as the nurse hadn't seemed concerned with the report. I asked "what day do you need me to make the appointment?" She said "I need you to go now. She said that we would be there for a few hours. And then she said "I need you to go right now - as soon as you leave this office." The floor started feeling woozy beneath me, and I asked "well can we stop for lunch on the way over there?" She replied "only if you stop somewhere with a quick drive through."

We rushed out of her office and drove the thirty minutes or so to the hospital, with me panicked all the way. Patrick was surprisingly calm and told me that we'd be fine. That everything would be o.k.

We stopped for some burritos on the way and then made it up to labor and delivery triage. They sent me down for a bio-physical profile of the baby via ultrasound which showed that he was practicing his breathing and was moving fine. Then I was sent back upstairs for a non-stress test. Julian's heartbeat was between 145-150 with dips as low as 130 and as high as 175. He didn't move that often, but he was far more active. Unfortunately, after I'd been hooked up to the blood pressure monitor the nurse dashed out of the room. An hour and twenty minutes later, I was still hooked up to it - thought it had thankfully deflated on its own. I didn't take it off because there were a lot of monitor-y looking wires that were connected to the machine. The room was swelteringly hot - and poor Patrick was bored out of his mind. As it turns out, there were two deliveries back to back which is why the nurse disappeared on us for so long. It was kind of scary though.

All in all, there was far more excitement in the day than I'd hoped for - er, at least not the same kind that I'd hoped.

But he's o.k. and I'm to go back to the doctor next week - assuming I don't go into labor before then.