Keeping us on our toes!!!

Well, well, little one.  We've heard the phrase A LOT, "giving you a run for your money".  But we were hoping not to use that phrase when it came to you/us for a very long time.  Last night, however, you won the battle and we lost.  I wanted to re nickname you, "little buggar", but Dad didn't think it was very endearing.

See, Mommy has been quite busy over the last few days, visiting friends/family, doing some shopping research for you, completing a gift for Daddy and doing a lot of driving.  I have been feeling quite uncomfortable and tired, so I wasn't as "on the ball" as I usually am. 

Yesterday morning, I realized that I had not felt you moving much at all in the last day.  You have DEFINITE patterns, which surprises the midwives already (but not me, as I am a pattern kind of person) and your pattern had been off.  I had been feeling quite stretched and sore lately, so Dad just kept reassuring me that you were having a growth spurt and were extra tired.  By mid morning/early afternoon, I thought more about it and called your Dad, saying that I really hadn't felt you move since the night before.  He tried to play off that he wasn't worried and to just call the midwives, but I knew he was worried as well.  I tried EVERYTHING!  Candy, water, pop, juice, milk, food...and NOTHING would make you budge.

I called the midwives mid afternoon and they said that I should head home (was already on my way there), have some protein, juice and a glass of really cold water, lie on my left side for a half hour and call them if you moved less than 6 times or not at all.  Within 30 minutes of getting home, you didn't move.  The midwife called back, asked us to meet her colleague at the hospital, so that she could do a check.  At this point, I was quite worried, as was your Dad.  She reassured me that you could have moved, now hiding yourself behind my placenta, which is in the front, but that she wanted to make sure, as your movements were so off. 

We got to the hospital and your Dad (he thinks he super funny, even when I'm worried), tried to make a joke: "Well, at least I know how to get you here now, when you're in labour and don't want to give me directions...maybe this baby just wanted us to have our hospital tour early...OOH look, the gift shop has SUPER CUTE TOYS"!  The last part of that statement, almost had me laughing, just because it is SO typical of your Dad!

We met the midwife, she reassured us not to wait so long next time and then took us into a triage room.  See, the GREAT thing about being pregnant and having midwives we found out, is that they meet you at Labour and Delivery, you skip the ER and go straight to a room to be examined!  It's like playing Monopoly, rolling the dice and getting sent to jail without collecting the $200 at "GO" (although better than going to jail obviously!).

She sat me down, asked a few questions and then pulled out the doppler to see if we could hear your heartbeat.  You gave us an immediate "horse gallop" of a heartbeat, at a nice strong 144bpm and for the first time in over 24 hours, gave a kick!  it was a kick SO HARD, that you moved the doppler right off of my belly!  We were all VERY relieved to see and hear that, but were all shocked at the amount of movement we heard on the doppler, without having any feeling of it from the outside/inside whatsoever!

She felt my belly and let us know that you are finally moving out of your "comfy" position, laying sideways across my belly!  I wasn't too happy to know that I have bruised ribs from you digging your bum up in there, but it made me laugh, as Dad likes to stick his bum out in a comfy position when he sleeps as well!  You are now laying diagonal in my tummy, with your face under the placenta and your legs up in my right ribs.  She gave me some suggestions on how to move you OUT OF THERE, before I break a rib, so let's hope that those work!

Needless to say, baby Clarke, you are keeping us on our toes!  It'd be nice if you stopped teasing us and playing games...until you've joined us outside in this world!!!!