Such good little test-takers!

Today was our next-to-last (penultimate) Non-Stress Test.  We had a different nurse working with us this time, and she was a big fan of the goop - my tummy was SUPER gooped for all the ultrasounds today. :)

The first step was to find the babies.  Just looking from the outside, I could see that they were huddling over on my right-hand side - my belly was tremendously lopsided, all squishy on the left and mounded on the right.  Once the ultrasound got underway, we found that Baby A had moved yet again.  Having spent the bulk of the pregnancy head down and ready to go, he'd shifted over to the right and flipped over breech a few weeks ago.  Now he's laying out along the absolute bottom of my uterus, stretching from side to side.  The next to be found was Baby C, all the way at the top.  She's been laying on her side the whole time, up on the left.  Now she's shifted over to the right to hang out with her brothers.  And then it was Baby B.  Baby B has not had a "usual" location.  He was the hardest to find this time as well, though eventually we did.  He's currently sandwiched between his siblings,  but again over on the right hand side.  Makes me wonder if these babies know they'll be born into a union family in San Francisco - don't they know they're supposed to trend to the left?

Next was fetal breathing.  And, just like last time, they pretty much performed on command.  It looked a little bit like they were hyperventilating, but since there's no air involved there's really no "ventilating" and the quick little motions are good practice for them.  Once they'd gotten the OK on the "breathing" we got to listen to the heartbeats.  They sound like horse hooves galloping - badabump, badabump, badabump.  Joe practiced working with the new videocamera and recorded them, but the video shows my big, ugly belly and so I don't think I'll be sharing those videos outside the family.  The little girl's heartbeat kept fading in and out as she seemed to squirm away from the little listening pad.  But we got her in the end!  Once all baby heartbeats were recorded, the nurse realized she'd forgotten to find the membrane that separates the babies and check fluid, so I got to get all gooped up again while she did that, but it wasn't too bad.

The only scare was that my blood pressure was slightly (VERY slightly) elevated.  We were a little nervous because there'd been another woman there when we showed up who had been sent to Labor and Delivery for observation because of her elevated bp.  To make it worse, she had her completely adorable 2-year old daughter with her who kept telling the nurse, "Thank you for making sure my mommy is going to be OK." and "Are we all done now?"  But since my BP was only slightly up I'm just supposed to monitor it like I have been and call in if it doesn't come down.

Twelve days to go!!!