My First Weekly Non Stress Tomorrow.....

Hi ladies, I will be 33 weeks tomorrow and will be having my first Non Stress Test tomorrow. I have already had one a few weeks ago when I freaked out that there was decreased fetal movement. When actually both my babies flipped head down and I had all 4 feet kicking me in my right rib area and I thought all the movement was from one baby! Yeah, I felt silly afterwards.

Anyway, I just want to know what to expect, what the results mean. Good case scenario and bad case scenario......

Thanks for your input and sharing xojillian

 

With mine I just sit there and they watch for the heartrate to rise when they are active and then fall again once they stop moving. I kinda poke them a little to get them moving because with the first one I had to wait forever for baby b to move enough that he passed. My ob likes to see their heartrates rise above the 150s.....I don't know how many times they have to do this though before she is satisfied. They also monitor my contractions too if I am having any. So far everything has been good.

 

Jillian, I felt they were a pain in the neck!! It was impossible to keep both the hearts on the monitor and the nurse kept leaving making me do it! GRRRRR. I think it induces more stress, so go in with a really laid back attitude and you'll do fine!! I found it uncomfortable, so if you can think of a way to make it better, tell them!!! :hug99:

 

Although I love seeing my babies movement "on paper"...it has been hard keeping them both on there. It seems as though they always want act up while I'm in there, causing my NST's to take over an hour and a half!!! I'm not complaining though, as long as my little babies are doing well, that is all I care about. PLUS, it's my free time, alone, for the day..lol.

 

They are making me start mine in 3 wks and im thinking the babies are still gonna be tiny and move too much. i had one last week and dr said i had good healthy happy babies and i only had 1 contraction in a 45min period. they had me laying down to do that one, but i think once i start in 3 wks i will be sitting as well as Dr said to bring something to eat with me as well as eat before i come, so the babies dont fal asleep and it takes longer to get thier heartrate to go up and down.

i agree with pp the nurse made me hold the heartrate monitor for the whole 45min because she could hear the heartbeat stronger GRRR made my wrist hurt

 

I just had my first one last week and will have another one tomorrow and Friday.
My twins are not morning babies, so the nurse had trouble getting them on the monitor at first but eventually they showed up and began to respond (of course, they were probably annoyed because getting up at 7:30 is way too early for them). I have not been having regular contractions at all and they did an ultrasound afterwards to measure the fluid around the babies, so they passed the first one with flying colors. It took about 45 minutes total. Baby A is still breech and B is still transverse, so the little cherubs seem to be rather comfortable where they are.

They basically just want to see that the babies are tolerating their cramped conditions and that nothing is wrong (good heartrate, good response, and not losing amionitic fluid). The nurse told me that if they could not get an adequate response, they would monitor me for an hour and if that did not work then they would do a biophysical profile (lsimilar to an ultrasound) and basically that can detect finer movements then their monitors can detect.

 

Ours was on the third floor. I walked up the stairs and ate a granola bar on the way up. That usually woke the babies, which was helpful.

The more pregnant I got, the more uncomfortable I found the tests. I had to lie almost on my back, and it was very difficult to breathe. They did have trouble finding and keeping both heartbeats. My babies were always fine, and being sure they were awake first was *very* helpful, but the test rarely took less than an hour to do (and I had a 45-min drive to the hospital first), so I did not enjoy the testing.

 

I am having them twice a week now- and I do not particularly enjoy them. I have had them last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hrs! Sometimes the babies don't move enough- other times they move too much and don't stay on the monitors. They may or may not monitor for contractions- in my case I have had them not do it a few times just because they say I am contracting anyway so why bother....
I was told to eat an hour before the test- which is pretty funny sometimes- because I have had to wait a long time to have them, so by the time I ate an hour before- it ended up being 4 hrs before the test!!! (doc running behind- no beds on l&d to do the test!!!)
Good luck- hopefully you will have very cooperative babies for you and it won't take too long!!!

 

QUOTE(~* dfaut *~ @ Dec 2 2007, 09:03 PM) [snapback]517975[/snapback]
Jillian, I felt they were a pain in the neck!! It was impossible to keep both the hearts on the monitor and the nurse kept leaving making me do it! GRRRRR. I think it induces more stress, so go in with a really laid back attitude and you'll do fine!! I found it uncomfortable, so if you can think of a way to make it better, tell them!!! :hug99:



My dh went with me the first one I had. He made a comment like "how the heck is this a NON stress test. It stresses me out!!" The girls would move around so much that the monitors couldn't keep up their heartbeat and the tech was usually out of the room.

 

So far I've had 2. The 1st one we had a very quick U/S to locate them and my wrists were killing me as I laid pretty far back in their chair, pushing the monitors onto them. It took about an hour. They kept on moving around and I had a time trying to find them again, then the nurses would come in (one by one until there were 3 or more) trying to find them. I learned that pushing the monitors on to them caused them to move away, so for as long as I could, I'd just lightly press or let go and let their stupid stretchy sock like thing around my waist hold them...

2nd time, no U/S so it took almost 30 minutes just to find them. This time I requested they move the chair from the wall so I could lay back further. It helped but I should have brought a pillow to put behind my back because I started to feel spasmings (I get back spasms and they've been coming up more and more with the coming weeks), the NST thing actually said I was having contractions. But I guess not enough to worry them. This time if we lost them, the nurses were quick to help us out because they left the door open a crack to hear it. I love how they leave the sound on and when the baby moves, you can hear them, and with both monitors belting out their heartbeats, it sounds like galloping horses. It's so beautiful, I took my MP3 player with me the second time to record it and send it to DH.

I'm getting mine 1x a week. I don't have any scheduled appointments that are more than that (2x a week) because she was going to push me to 40 weeks and so they only put me down with weekly NSTs (same day as OB check and U/S if I'm going to get it) until the 1st week of January - after that she's out on vacation (my 37 weeks is that same week, so I'm okay. lol) I'm actually curious to ask her about it....