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This baby hides. He is quiet and slow and only moves around enough to let me know that he's still alive in there, barely meeting the minimum standard of ten movements every three hours. Every time I have begun to worry, drinking juice, laying down, waiting and counting, Brett's voice has been the one thing that always starts the baby to move again. It's become a regular practice to call Brett over to make the baby move once or twice a day, just to check on the child before going on to the next task of the day. If Brett's not around, poking the baby often gets him to move. He doesn't like to be touched and squirms away when poked or even stroked.

Last night, we couldn't get him to move. I even tried poking the baby's head, whichalways makes him turn. We called over the midwife's assistant, thinking she would get here quickest. She did, but couldn't find his heartbeat. That in itself is not unusual. He often puts his back against his placenta, making finding the heartbeat tricky. But with no movement, not being able to find a heartbeat left too much risk. We drove to the hospital in complete silence, just the wind and Bear crying, which said everything we were feeling anyway.

As soon as they hooked me up to the fetal monitor, the baby moved. They found his heartbeat, which sounded to me much slower than usual. They said it was fine. He began to kick and squirm about in there. Bear stopped crying and settled into Linda's arms to read monster trading cards. The wind turned into a hard cold and Brett's blood shot eyes gave way to that ever present smile again (and a bloody nose -- what a geek). The monitor showed I was having contractions three to five minutes apart. I was just barely aware of them.

This morning I was having contractions that I was considerably more in touch with, contractions that hurt. They were ten to five minutes apart but I didn't want to risk being admitted, so I skipped a scheduled early morning appointment. They wouldn't have been able to do it anyway, because it was a non-stress test, the point of which is to see what my body is like when it's not contracting.

Then Jeanette, my homebirth CNM/ND called to check on me. I told her the baby hadn't moved all morning. She said she wants me to get my CNM/OB to order an ultrasound and see how the placenta is and how much fluid there is. She's afraid that the baby may not be strong enough to handle labor without going into distress, or that the placenta may be degrading in there.

So I shall wake Brett up from his nap, ask him to get the baby to move, decide from there whether or not to call the CNM and try to get an ultrasound.