Long story short: at the non-stress test today the fetal heart rate was consistently 185-190 with no variability.
It was pretty much close to a straight line.
If you are unfamiliar with how it is supposed to look, it is supposed to be between 110 and 160 and they want accelerations after fetal movement and then decelerations back to the baseline. They want to see this three times during your test.
New guy usually excels at this, but today as I saw the read-out after the nurse left the room I started getting nervous. Then I started to panic. The nurse came back in after 10 minutes later
She looked at my sheet and immediately summoned the doctor who sent me to Labor and Delivery at the hospital for monitoring.
I started planning on having the baby today via c-section. I stopped caring about all the other little things I had been planning to do (buy a stroller for the infant car seat, write a story for work, etc.)
But once I was over at the hospital the rate started to go down. It went down until the baseline was in the 140s again and it was only going up to the low 170s. The hospital doc, who I think was 14 years old, took a look at it and declared it normal. She called my doc. And then they sent me home.
But still I have no explanation for the cause of the fetal tachycardia, which worries me. They don't know what was wrong, and yet they sent me home and told me to do kick counts.
Initial Google searches point to maternal fever as a major cause of this. Other ones are not so reassuring.
When I got there the nurse at the hospital asked me if i was dehydrated. I said I thought I probably was. (No water yet due to too much running around, no sink or faucet in my kitchen, remodeling, mother in law visiting, etc.) The nurse was nice. She got me two cups of water and I drank them both. She said drinking water prevented premature labor. I told her that no worries on that at this point, since my due date is this coming Thursday.
I asked her about the causes of fetal tachycardia and she didn't have an answer. I asked her if the outcome was always good and she hesitated for a long time before she told me to do the kick counts, etc. All that makes me nervous nervous nervous. And it makes me want to call the doc on call at my practice and press for answers.
Hmmm, how to be reassuring...ok, you are very very close to delivery, right?
Reality is that if they saw anything odd, they'd have kept you at L&D and just delivered the baby.
If you really feel nervous, ask your Doc for an ultrasound to double check on the baby. Otherwise, relax. OK?
Posted by: Aurelia | July 23, 2007 at 08:51 PM
No reason not to call the doc on call and ask for a full discussion. You don't have to worry alone.
Posted by: thalia | July 24, 2007 at 07:53 AM