One, Two, Three...KICK!

I went to the Dr. last Friday for my first appointment of the third trimester (good result on the blood glucose test!!) They gave me some paperwork to read over that outlined things to know for this last phase of pregnancy. One new thing that I was instructed to do was start counting Elena's kicks, to help monitor that she is remaining active and healthy.

Now, the Dr. said the average baby will kick around 3 times per hour, and 10 times in periods of high activity. It's this ten kick hour that you want to make sure the baby has. The suggestion is to have a snack and then shortly thereafter, lay down and start counting. I don't have time to lie around for an hour and count!!!! So, ever resourceful, I devised a plan. I created a spreadsheet (I do love my Excel) that covered my hours at work. Since I am at my desk much of the day, I figured "I'll make a tick mark for each kick and track it that way. Not too disruptive, and then I can easily determine if she has kicked 10 times in an hour. GENIUS!!!!"

So there I was yesterday at 8:30am, sitting with my chart, ready to go, expecting 26 to 33 kicks over the course of my 8.5 hour day, based on the averages stated to me. Maybe a few more, since we all know this baby seems to have a bit more energy than others. Imagine my surprise (exhaustion, irritation) when 5:00pm rolled around and Miss Elena had kicked, swished, punched, head-butted, and poked me 99 times!!!!

Now, don't get me wrong, I am elated that this is an active baby, full of life (although I see some LOOONG nights in our future.) However, this exercise of drawing attention to how active she is MAY have been a bad idea. I think the genius plan will need to be revised so that once I have hit that ten kick mark, the chart goes away for the day, and I try to forget that I've got an aspiring punter with me!