Minor Freak Out

On April 23 (13 weeks), we had our second doctor's visit. It was just a run of the mill check-up to make sure everything was still going as planned. After having the financial meeting with the billing department, we got called into the office. Almost immediately, the nurse came in to check the baby's heartbeat. She pulls out the "doppler" device that I had heard so many horrible things about. I wasn't worried though, since we had already heard a strong heartbeat at 9 weeks. She begins moving this tiny (but LOUD) thing around on my stomach searching for the heartbeat. She does this for about a minute before she starts saying things like "sometimes it's really hard to find the heartbeat with these when they are so small" and "sometimes it's hard to distinguish the baby's heartbeat from the mother's" and so on. So I started to panic. I looked over at Ryan and his head was down and he wouldn't look at me. More panic. She decided that we should do an ultrasound to make sure everything is okay. We were sent to a small room to wait for the ultrasound where I cried and lived a million lives in approximately 5 minutes. As soon as we got into the room and the ultrasound (external - hallelujah!) got started, we immediately saw our baby and heard a strong heartbeat at 149 bpm. I can still hear my husband's loud and relief-filled exhale when we heard that sweet sound! The momentary stress was totally worth it since we got new pictures of our little one...

Especially since it actually looks like a baby now! I am terrible at deciphering ultrasounds, so I'm glad that we got one that is pretty straightforward! From then on, nothing really mattered about the appointment. We did all the normal stuff and left with happy hearts.

The moral of the story is: don't trust the doppler. I have heard so many horror stories of women who were told they had miscarried because there was no heartbeat on the doppler, only to find out weeks later that everything was completely normal.

Only 4 more weeks until we can start shopping for pink or blue!