No Further Enlightenment

I had my "40 week" midwife appointment today. No weight change in the last week so I'm holding steady at 30 lbs gained. Blood pressure is good. Belly measures right on target for 40 weeks.

The good news is that it appears that Sprout is no longer posterior!!!! YAY! The heartbeat was strong and LOUD which indicates an anterior position (versus far-away and difficult to find, which is what we heard in the past). Woohoo! I still have to keep leaning forward as much as I can to keep him/her from going back to posterior (and it can certainly change during labor, too) but this is a good start!

We talked about what comes next. My next appointment is June 1st and if I haven't had Sprout by then, we will begin discussing NST and checking amnio fluid levels. In the meantime, she wanted me to keep up with the natural attempts at induction to do whatever I can to help move things along.

There was one small problem. We discussed the GBS thing again and I repeated that I do not want antibiotics and that the pediatrician on-call for them said they would then want me to stay for observation for 24 hours, which I will do. According to this midwife, the observation period is 48 hours - I DO NOT want to be stuck there for the first 2 days of my child's life. Especially for something that is unlikely to be a problem, and if it is, we would know within the first 24 hours. I agreed to 24 hours because a typical birth center stay is 12 hours... what's 12 more, you know? But 48 hours... don't want to do it. It's more money out of our pockets, it's increasing the likelihood of coming home with an illness (because hospitals are the best places to get sick, and we would be transferred to the hospital from the birth center for the stay), and it's putting our new lives on hold. If I leave before their recommended period of observation is up, I have to sign an AMA form (I think that's the name of it?) saying I'm leaving against their medical recommendations... and in some cases, that means insurance will refuse to pay if there is a problem down the road.

Not too happy about this being sprung on me...