At least we know where we're going now

Nick and I had our 36 week appointment yesterday and Miss Allie got a great report. Her heartbeat sounded great, I'm not dilated at all yet, she's head down and on track to be approximately a 7-7.5 pounder when she's born. It was a fabulous afternoon!

We got home and did a little bit of work around the house, including putting the finishing touches on the nursery. We finished hanging pictures around 7:00pm, ate dinner and started watching some TV.

After I eat, I'm supposed to do a kick count. Allie is supposed to move at least 10 times in the 2 hours following my meal. I laid down to start counting and got nothing. That's right, nothing at all. No movements, twitches, rolls, kicks. Nothing. The more I thought about it, the last time I remembered feeling her move was at the doctor's office around 4:00pm.

I tried not to freak out and started using some of the "tricks" I've noticed that never fail to get her moving. I drank a glass of ice cold water. Nothing. I drank a glass of apple juice. Nothing. I poked her in the butt. Nothing. I rolled to my other side. Nothing. I used the restroom. Nothing. I ate a granola bar. Nothing. She had NEVER not moved for that long. She loves the evenings and is usually going crazy. It was now 10pm and I was terrified.

We called the doctor and they told us to head to the hospital immediately to me monitored. We live almost an hour away from the hospital so we didn't arrive until 11pm. I swear it was the longest hour of my life. They hooked us up to the monitors and there was her little heart, just beating away like nothing had ever happened. It was truly the sweetest sound I've ever heard and both Nick and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. She still wasn't really moving too much so they had me drink an additional 1 liter of ice cold water in 30 minutes. That must have done the trick (FINALLY!) because she woke up and decided to have a little dance party. I was so relieved.

They did pick up some contractions on the monitors as well but didn't seem concerned. Probably just braxton hicks brought on by stress. They went away after some time and I couldn't feel them anyway so it wasn't a big deal for me.

We were released from the hospital about 1:00am with a clean bill of health for myself and the little Stinker. They said they don't know why she would be so still for so long but that if it happens again to come back in immediately. We got in the car and headed home. Allie kicked and rolled the whole way home and I swear hasn't stopped since! Looks like we may have a little trouble maker on our hands in a few weeks.

It was quite possibly one of the longest nights of my life but hey, at least we know where we're going now!