A Moment of Excitement

Early this morning, Richie started having an occasional late deceleration. What is that? You said. In L&D, they (nearly) continually monitor two things. The fetal heart tones (AKA baby's hear rate) and mom's contractions (by a thing called a tocometer). When a contraction takes place, the tocometer level goes up. If the baby's heart rate falls in near perfect concert with the contraction, that is considered an early deceleration and the "understanding" is it the response to the baby's head being compressed by the contraction. Alternatively, the heart rate could go up, which is considered a happy response to the stimulation and it does not matter what the timing is with relationship to the contraction. Or, nothing at all, which is also a happy thing. Most of what Richie is doing is accelerating. Finally, there are late and variable decelerations. A late deceleration is where the baby's heart rate drops with a trough that is delayed after the peak of the contraction. The "understanding" is that it means the blood supply to the baby is being compromised by the contraction. Such as, the cord is getting pinched by the contraction. A variable deceleration means it is randomly early and late and is intermediate in "goodness" between the early and late deceleration.
Richie was having a few, more frequent, decelerations. So, I took it upon myself to have ML roll on to her other side. Richie was looking better for a few minutes and then we lost the signal. I knew he was alright because he was still moving and that it was just positioning of the detector. I called for a nurse, but no one came for about 5 min. We still had no signal, but I figured that they must be busy. Then, the detector either found ML's heart rate at around 80 (Richie is normally at 150). ML said, "Let's move the detector." I said, "No, it's okay, it'll get there butts in here." Within 30 seconds, the room is filled with nurses and doctors! The move her position around, check ML's pulse and they find Richie at 153. Because of the scare, they decided not to give any more prostaglandin and they hooked her up to the IV. I'm starting to wonder if Richie is just going to buck the system and not come out until the 1st. :-)