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2007-07-03 - 10.54pm��previous entry��next entry
8 weeks, 1 day - heartbeat!!!
Just a quick entry as I'm feeling sick. I just couldn't wait to say that I found Beanlet's heartbeat with my doppler tonight!!! I'm only 8 weeks and 1 day! Soooo early for hearing the heartbeat. I'm glad I tried earlier than people say it's possible :)
Yesterday evening I listened for 5 minutes and only heard placenta sounds. I decided to do it when I hadn't recently been for a wee, because I figured it might help - you know how they ask you to have a full bladder for abdominal scans? Anyway, I figured it might help in the same way - lift the uterus up or something. But nada. Very early though, so I didn't have any worries about it.
Tonight I couldn't wait to use the doppler and kept thinking about it while I was breastfeeding each of the boys during the bedtime routine. As soon as I said goodnight to Arthur I came downstairs (well, I went for a wee first without thinking), and got the doppler out straight away!
I plonked the doppler probe thingy right on my bikini line and literally 2 or 3 seconds later, there it was! I expected to search carefully for a looong time, but I didn't have to search at all! It's much fainter and quieter than I'm used to hearing heartbeats on dopplers, but I presume that's because Beanlet is still sooooo tiny for hearing his/her teeny tiny heart beating away! He/she is not even 2cm long yet! I can't even fathom the exact size of the tiny heart that I was hearing. So incredible.
Anyway! It was so nice and clear, despite being quiet - very steady and strong. It just went chuffa-chuffa-chuffa-chuffa-chuffa over and over. So sweet! I found with the boys that the chuff-chuff sounds were all I would find early on, and as the baby got bigger and the heart more easy to hear, then I would get more distinct gallopy-horsey sounds.
Beanlet's heart was going so fast! I remember from the site that used to exist (so sad that it doesn't now!) that the heart starts beating at about 70bpm and then increases steadily like an engine revving. The peak of that "rev" is just before 9 weeks (it increases in speed every day until then), where it can be somewhere over 180bpm, and after that it slows down to somewhere between 120 and 160, typically, with accelerations during times of activity. I don't have the type of doppler which shows you a heartrate, but I always get a clock with a second hand and start counting out loud until I see a full minute pass. Then I know how many beats per minute there are :) Beanlet's heartrate was 174 today! That sounds just perfect for this gestation - yay!
Every time I got up and wanted to be sure I could still hear the heartbeat, I would lie down and check again, and there it still was. Neil was upstairs a while with Arthur, and I waited for him to come down so I could let him hear Beanlet's heart beating. When he finally DID come down, I couldn't find it anywhere! Typical! I did find all my lovely strong whooshy placenta sounds, but no tiny heart beating. Then I noticed that all the doppler sounds were kind of echoey, and realised that I needed to wee quite badly by then! So I went to the loo, came back, and lo and behold - there was Beanlet's little heartbeat in no time at all! So it seems that having a full bladder gets in the way of Beanlet, when I am listening with the doppler, at least this early on while my uterus is still so low.
I CAN feel a certain rounded "something" now, above my pubic bone. I found the heartbeat right on my bikini line, and not angling down at all, so I am guessing that means my uterus is protruding above my pubic bone for sure. That would account for the rounded resistance, but it's not the same as the unmistakable feel of a firm ridge of uterine muscle under my hand! It won't be long though - I can't believe I am really going to have a pregnant belly bump again! It feels like NO time since I last had one, and I LOVE it soooo much so I'm really excited that it's come round again for me! I can't wait to show already!! But I am happy enough to wait, since the time is passing so fast.
I am feeling pretty sick today, but I believe it has been a touch easier to deal with than last week, at least half of the day. I made a chicken pie and a dessert - first time I made a dessert in a couple of weeks because I just COULDN'T face it before. It was only fruit salad today, so not the same as making apple crumble or something, but still it's an improvement for me. I did feel sick as anything while I made it, but it's still better than feeling just TOO sick to contemplate cooking anything. I could hardly bear to eat what I made when it came to it, but I felt better for it. The fruit salad turned my stomach just to look at it, but I ate some anyway and I felt SO much better just halfway through it. It's the weirdest thing, morning sickness! It's so topsy-turvy, having to eat just when you feel so utterly nauseated, to feel better. So weird!
Okay, my cheese and crackers this evening have not helped me feel better and I think I will call it a night. I have been really tired today so sleep would be good.
I am just so excited about hearing Beanlet's heart beating. I felt so mushy towards my newest baby bean. The sweet chuffy little heartbeat just melted me, because I couldn't help but think of the sound as a fervent determination by such a tiny little being, to grow and exist and SURVIVE! Such a tiny little one, heart chuffing away almost enthusiastically, determined to make it into the world! Aww. I know it's technically just a heart beating and all the rest is just my hormonally-fuelled imagination, but I can't help it. My heart is mush. I have THREE children. I can't believe it. My heart is full of love and I just feel squeezy with joy that I have another tiny precious to love. Everything in me is longing, willing that tiny beany person to make it. Things look good, and I am not really thinking at all about anything going wrong at this point. But when I heard the heart beating and had that sense of my tiny one determined to survive, working hard at growing and developing, striving with enthusiasm, suddenly my heart ballooned out with a creak that I almost heard with my own ears - a new "chamber", a larger capacity, the new "home" for alllll the love I will ever carry for this baby. It almost ached, I almost believed that it physically happened. Suddenly, every fibre of my being burned with longing for that child, to succeed wherever he or she longed to succeed, and to protect that little one whenever he or she needed someone to comfort or shield them from anything. Already I feel such a fierce sense of protective pride over even the "efforts" of that tiny heart beating and doing so well at life already!
*sigh*
I just love having babies and being Mummy. I am so happy and so blessed! Yes, I am going now because I feel sick and horrible and bleurghy, but right now I'm so happy about WHY I feel sick that it makes me smile to even think about my nausea :)
And Matthew is awake and now I will snuggle that boo. I'll update again soon!
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