Early or Late, a Doctor's Response

As with any expectant parent, once you hit the one month mark of your due date, you start to wonder when the elusive baby will finally arrive. You start to wonder if it will be early or late and if you'll be ready. This was the question we asked our radiologist, but I will first begin with why we were in to see him in the first place.

After our regular 35 week appointment, our OB said that I was measuring on the small side. This worried her a bit, so she tried to get us in to see the radiologist for an unscheduled ultrasound. Unfortunately, it being late afternoon on Friday, the office was closed for the day (weekend). Our OB had me do a Non-Stress Test which tests two things: 1) contractions and 2) baby's heartrate. I was hooked up to the Non-Stress Test machine for 20 minutes, eating crackers and juice to make the baby more responsive and clicking a button every time I felt movement from the baby. After 20 minutes of this, the results came out normal (which normal means that the baby's heartrate will rise and fall between 130 and 160 bpm consistently and fairly rhythymically) which meant I didn't have to go into the ER. I scheduled our ultrasound for the following Tuesday to see the radiologist. We had some more pictures taken, measurements done and the doctor said the baby looked good. It measured in the 14th percentile of all babies which is small, but taking my size into consideration, the baby was right on track - what a relief!

SO - after all this, I asked the radiologist, "After looking at all of this and doing these measurements and tests, do you have any inkling of whether the baby will be early or late?" (Of course what I was asking was if he thought it would be before our due date of 10/28 or after) Here is the doctor's response - and of course this would have only come from a doctor. "Well, anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks is considered full term. You're 36 weeks now, so I don't think you will be early since there are only a few more days left of 36 weeks. I think you'll be right on time"

UMM...thank you, doctor, for giving me a 5 week window! haha! Oh well, I guess it's still a guessing game of when Jooyoung decides to join us! :)