32 Weeks: First Fetal Nonstress Test

On Friday, the boys and I had the first fetal nonstress test (NST).  They passed after about half an hour or so of being monitored.  Since they passed the NST, the ultrasound tech did not do a full biophysical profile.  She did tell me that unofficially they would have passed with a 10/10 based on what she saw while she was doing the ultrasound to set the probes for the NST.  I'll give you a quick summary of the appointment.  This machine is something that in generally used during childbirth to monitor the baby, so you may be more familiar with it than you realize.  The only difference is mine is measuring 2 heart beats.

When I got there, the tech gave me a more detailed explanation of what they were looking at and when the readings would result in me getting taken to labor and delivery for further monitoring.  Basically, they set a probe over each baby's heart that measures heart rate.  They want to see 2 episodes of heart rate accelerations of greater than 15 beats per minute for longer than 30 seconds.  They want to see the two episodes happen in under 40 minutes or so.  The tech does a quick ultrasound to find where each baby's heart would best be monitored.  Zeus is down low on my right side.  His probe kept slowly sliding down the giant mound that is my belly.  He is the one that took longer to pass, but it was mostly because his probe kept drifting down my belly.

Here is me hooked up to the machine:

I marked the probes with the corresponding baby being monitored.  I left my face in this one, because I believe it very accurately displays how I felt at the time.  Internet weirdos, enjoy.  (Wow, my belly sure looks huge)

After the probes were set, I just had to lay there.  I couldn't move very much because if I moved Zeus's probe started its march down my belly bump.  It was not very comfortable, but at this point no position is actually comfortable.  The tech came in and out to check on the results to see if they had the accelerations they needed.  Leonidas got his 2 episodes in under 10 minutes.  Zeus took a while longer.  The tech did say that Zeus took longer to do them, but when he did them he really went all out and had big accelerations.

I did take a little video of the machine during my test.  You can see the heart rate digitally displayed as it is registered for each baby.  I'm not sure exactly whose heart beat you can hear in the audio.  It seemed like she could switch between the babies, or maybe not.  That is a question that I didn't think to ask.  Maybe I'll ask during one of my two tests this week... or the two next week... ugh.  Here is a link to the video:

http://youtu.be/jvLjwL68DOg

I didn't do the best job taking the video.  I couldn't see what I was recording because of the angle.  You get a general tour of the printout, the front of the machine, and whatever else was going on.  The number in the 100s on the left was Leonidas and the number in the 100s on the right was Zeus.

That is the general overview of my appointment.  There was no doctor involved.  I was there for about 45 minutes total.  I'll have a full round of appointments on Tuesday to see how they are measuring and all the other fun stuff.