Doctor visit!

Today's appointment was relatively uneventful--more so than the last two. Blood pressure was fine, I gained a pound (7 pounds in 5 weeks, not bad!), heartbeat sounded great (even though for the first time we had to chase her a little bit to get it). I forgot to ask what I was measuring, but I'm no longer worried at all so that's okay.

I was told I'm strep B positive, which simply means I'll have to have antibiotics during labor to make sure Baby Girl is okay. Without the antibiotics, there'd be a small chance she'd develop a serious condition or something. They were able to test and find out that my particular strep B culture is resistant to an antibiotic that started with a C and inconclusive toward an antibiotic that started with an I. I'm allergic to penicillin, so that leaves what I'm told is a relatively strong one, an antibiotic that starts with a B. Fine by me.

So let's talk about kick count cards. Every visit for the past month or so, I've been given an index card with a chart and instructions on how to count Baby Girl's kicks.

Kick count week 1: I read the directions wrong. Annoyed and astounded at the idea of lying on my side for an hour every single day, presumably until I deliver, to count baby movement I was not at all worried about (she's a regular boxer in there), I declined to do it. Who has the time? The card taunted me the entire week and I conveniently forgot it at my next appointment. To my dismay, they gave me another for the next week.

Kick count week 2: I griped to a friend who'd gone through the same practice I'm at. She set me straight on the instructions: apparently, you only have to count until you reach 4 kicks. No big deal. I always keep track of kicks mentally and qualitatively, anyway, and always feel plenty, so 10 minutes before my next appointment, I filled out the card for the past week. The nurse was just happy I turned it in. She neglected to give me another, so I was off the hook for the next visit.

Kick count week 3: Despite the fact that I didn't have one to turn in the previous week, a different nurse gave me another card, albeit while commenting she thought they were pointless. It went promptly into the recycle bin.

Kick count week 4 (this week): I didn't have a card to turn in this visit, and the nurse gently and sweetly told me how important it is to keep track of Baby's movements (apparently this nurse didn't think they were pointless). I told her about Baby Girl's abusive tendencies, but that I had noticed she'd quieted down for the past day or so. Shouldn't it be enough that I'm really tuned into it? I was given a card for next week and I'm still figuring out what to do with it.

Is it wrong to want to give birth soon simply so I don't have to deal with kick count cards anymore? Probably.