36 Week Appointment Update

Yesterday was our 36 week appointment. I forgot to give the midwife the little "pocket chart" that she usually fills out w/ the pertinent stats from each appointment (bp, measurements, etc) so not sure if I'm still measuring 3 weeks ahead or not. Thought about it as I was leaving & decided it wasn't worth going back to ask, since I'm on weekly appointments now anyway, and it really doesn't matter. . .

She did an internal check, primarily to confirm that baby's head is down (the girls' eyes got very big when she said she'd FELT the baby's head LOL). But while she was "there" she checked my progress as well. Said I'm dilated to a "loose 1" which I assume means somewhere between 1 & 2. And said that's pretty typical for 36 weeks. Obviously this means NOTHING, some women don't dilate at all until active labor, others walk around for WEEKS several cm dilated, but there you have it.

Also took the GBS culture at yesterday's appointment, so now we just wait (& pray) it's negative. Having done some research in the last couple weeks, I'm confident that I do NOT want the abx, even if it's positive, but I don't know how well that will go over w/ the midwives, and I KNOW it won't go over well at the hospital, should I have to transfer there. However, since the hospital would treat me as assumed positive if I were to decline the test, I decided it was better to do the culture & hope for a negative that would make it all a non-issue. Sometime between now & next Tuesday, I want to go through & consolidate all the information floating through my head into concise points that I can make w/ the mw, if needed, at the next appointment. May also go ahead & print out a revised birth plan that clearly states, no abx for GBS, so that I have it, and can hand it to her right away, should it be positive. . . I'm a big believer in planning for the worst & hoping for the best LOL.

So that's about all there was to yesterday's appointment. A asked the mw, why she needed a stethescope AND a blood pressure cuff to take blood pressure, and our wonderful mw gave her a brief, easy to understand, explaination about how it all works (which I didn't know either). A was able to explain it to Daddy last night, so she seems to have "gotten" the concept. The mw also gave them each a glove (since she was using one for the exam) and showed them how to blow it up to look like a chicken (sort of), so they're having fun w/ those, though Lexie's managed to get a hole before we ever got home.