When your pregnancy goes into overtime, additional testing is required and today I arrived at the Queens Medical Center for another AFI (amniotic fluid index) and NST (non-stress test). This is my third NST and my second AFI since last week. It’s definitely made us more familiar with Queens and now we’re not worried about getting lost on the big day. I almost opted to deliver at Kapiolani for the mere fact that it is nearly impossible to get lost there, whereas Queens can seem like a labyrinth of hallways. The thought of being in labor and getting lost on our way to the Labor & Delivery Unit is frightening to a first time mama like me.

We started with the AFI, the ultrasound administered by a new technician who just moved to Hawaii. Last week’s ultrasound took all of 15 minutes, but today it lasted nearly 45 minutes. I can’t blame the technician completely, though. Baby Champuru was being pretty uncooperative, moving around and making it tough for the ultrasound tech to get a doppler reading of the blood flow in her brain. She kept moving her head, which was apparently in an odd position. So, the technician ended up calling in a more experienced staff member who was able to get the reading despite Baby Champuru’s hyperactivity in the womb. “She’s rockin’ and rollin’ in there,” the technician remarked.

Twice during the scanning, I started to feel faint from lying on my back and had to ask her to stop while I sat up to recover. I suspect that the uncomfortable position that I was in, with my back arching, my knees locking, and my feet dangling off the edge, contributed to the problem. The baby was likely putting pressure on the inferior vena cava, causing my lightheadedness. Thankfully, I managed to get through the test without passing out and the test results were good.

We then went upstairs to the Labor & Delivery Unit for the NST. Baby Champuru was still bouncing off my uterine walls when they hooked me up for the NST. I was pushing the button to track her movement almost continuously for the first several minutes. During this time, her heart rate was running higher than normal. I wonder if my discomfort during the ultrasound test had stressed her out? Or maybe it was the exciting episode of Monk that we were watching TV that was making her excited? The nurse kept me on the monitor for almost an hour and had the on-call doctor review the results since she thought her activity level and heart rate was running high at times. The doctor looked at the graph for a few minutes and said that baby was fine and that he would be more concerned if she wasn’t moving as much. Very active is better than lethargic, which may indicate a problem with the baby. With that, the nurse let us go and said, “see you Friday!”

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