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2004-04-05 - 10.57pm��previous entry��next entry
9 weeks, 3 days - Doppler excitement!!!
I'm back and since it's evening I am feeling pretty sick, but I have been to the supermarket today and am now happily munching through a bag of pre-washed iceburg lettuce, which is helping! :)
Thank you Deborah for all the great advice in that guestbook message! I plan to email soon!! xxx
Did ANYONE watch the ultrasound movie after I posted the link yesterday?! Surely someone thought it was amazing/cute enough to say so?!! Oh well. *I* thought it was amazing anyway!
No midwife appointment in the post this morning, so I am going to make an appointment to see my GP tomorrow and try to chase it up.
BUT - the reason I am making an entry today! - something pretty amazing DID arrive in the post this morning! My doppler arrived just before noon, special delivery!!!! I am so excited. I kept telling myself as I was unpacking it that it would probably be too early to hear Bean's heartbeat, and not to get my hopes up till next week. They say 10 weeks is the cut-off, from then on it's possible to find the heartbeat. Before is iffy, or impossible.
Well I had a doppler with a working battery and a big squirty bottle of ultrasound gel, so I couldn't resist a try! I lay on the sofa, read the instructions, and decided since it's still so early on that I would start with the wand-y thing around my bikini line. I figured Bean should still be behind my pubic bone since my books say the womb doesn't pop out from there till around week 12. But I started higher because of my bulge and also because I knew I could always angle the wand down a bit if I needed to.
I found my placenta pretty much straight away - such an AMAZING sound!!! Big strong rhythmic whoosh whoosh whoosh whooshes. I'm so amazed at my body, really I am. I just can't get my head round the fact that MY body is really doing this. I don't know why it's so weird for me to think about, but it is. Anyway so that was encouraging. The placenta sounds were pretty much central, at my bikini line. They continued to my left a little but faded out to my right. I listened to the placenta for quite a while without feeling too desperate to look for Bean, because I was just so amazed to hear that *I* have a placenta!! Me!! It's so brain-boggling. I am really pregnant.
Anyway then I moved slightly to the right, still pretty central, away from the whooshy noise of the placenta, angling the wand around evvvverso slowly so as not to miss Bean by moving past her too fast, and within about 20 seconds I heard the most WONDERFUL noise I have ever heard ever in my whole life (ever) - Bean's little heart beating, loud and clear. Lots of background scratchiness and all that normal doppler stuff, but there it was bold as brass. So fast. It was going kerplonkerplonkerplonkerplonker about as fast as you can form those syllables without getting tongue-tied. I expected it to be a lovely moment and to be all awed and everything, but what I didn't expect was the tidal wave of emotions that hit me, seriously. Not like, "Ohhh that's so amazing, awww my baby!" or anything like that, but raw emotion without a particular set of vocabulary or trigger thought to go with it, and crying and sobbing that I couldn't hold back no matter how it made my tummy jump around and keep losing Bean's heartbeat on the doppler! I just felt so indescribably relieved and happy and just.... some other feelings that I can't label with words or even figure out at the moment. It was so incredible.
After I stopped crying and laughing (which took me a while!) I settled down for a good listen and counted the beats of Bean's heart for a full minute. 177. That's really good at this stage. Normal at 8w6d (Bean should be around 9w0d today) is apparantly 180 according to some heartrate paediatricy website, and other sites say they like the heartrate of a baby at this gestation to be between 150 and 180. I had been slightly nervous of finding Bean with a low heartrate, which could indicate that the pregnancy was failing, since I have read about that at FF on the pregnancy boards. I read too much worrying stuff!! But anyway, Bean is super healthy and strong today, by what I heard.
Then I HAD to tell someone immediately, and I phoned Neil at work (he knew the doppler had arrived because he phoned right after the postman came and I told him I was going to try it out). But he was at lunch and I got voicemail, grrr!! So I phoned Mummy and told her. She was all interested and said it sounded exciting and amazing and lovely, etc, but I was thinking, "You don't KNOW!! It's MUCH more than that when you hear it!" So after we chatted a while, I lay down on the sofa again with Mummy on the phone, and took a little while with the doppler to find Bean again, and then Mummy heard Bean's heartbeat down the phone. She was just in complete awe. She had never heard anything like it before. I LOVE that I bought this doppler. It's already been worth twice what I paid for it, but I know it's gonna prove its value much more soon. I love that our family and close friends can hear Bean down the phone at any time, and I love that me and Neil can "spend time" with Bean anytime too. I love that I can find reassurance at the drop of a hat (or pair of loose-waisted trousers!) every day if I need to. It's soooo worth buying a doppler, I am so glad I did. I didn't even realise how much I needed the reassurance of hearing my baby's heartbeat. SUCH a relief.
I was absolutely itching for Neil to get home from work today! I tried to nap and I watched some TV and pre-washed all my new kissaluv diapers, and I phoned Neil to tell him I had heard Bean. I couldn't really let him hear over the phone at work because it takes me a while to find Bean every time and he can't hang about on the phone at work. I phoned my grandparents and let them hear their first great-grandchild's heart beating - they both listened on different phone extensions, and it was so lovely. They couldn't believe it. They just kept saying how amazing it was. I am LOVING this.
I finally decided to go to the supermarket and buy some stuff we need, to pass the last hour or two before Neil got home. I wore my dungarees and felt soooo nice and pregnant, it was so cool. I saw 2 other pregnant mums there, both with big bumps. Can't wait for my big bump! But I am happy with my little Bean while she is little. I wouldn't really want to wish away any of this experience, even the queasy bit, even though I AM keen to get to the second trimester and feel better.
After the supermarket I went to Boots and bought chewable calcium. I know I am keen on milk and stuff right now, but I read in my pregnancy book that I need 1600mg of calcium every day, and while Bean is building bones she will take calcium from my bones if there isn't enough in my diet, leaving me with more brittle bones, and I don't want that to happen. I added up the calcium I am getting from milk and cheese and stuff each day, and even with my pint of choccy milk every day I am not sure I'm getting enough calcium. Plus in my pregnancy book there's this interesting little reference to some research which says that pregnant women who take a big calcium supplement on top of their dietary intake reduce their risk of pre-eclampsia and high blood pressure quite considerably. So all in all, I decided it would be a good thing to get a calcium supplement. There IS some in my prenatal vitamin, but very little, and I don't always take it. Sometimes I just take folic acid on its own.
So today I bought chewable calcium (800mg!) which should sort me and Bean out nicely :) By the time I got to Boots I was feeling pretty sick and yucky and empty again, not to mention thirsty, so I bought a raisin and sultana flapjack and a citrus Oasis drink, just to have something to put in my mouth and settle my tummy a bit. I was soooo hungry in the car on the way home, I stuffed the flapjack (messily) while I was driving, and I was almost home when I realised I HAD to have more of those flapjacks! Not for that very moment, but it tasted soooo good and my stomach felt so much better for eating it that I knew I needed a small supply for if I started craving them later on or the next day!
So I turned around and drove back to Boots, and put a small pile of flapjacks on the counter to pay for them, and the lady behind the counter did a double take when she looked up because she'd just served me about 3 minutes before and I was sort of standing there probably with flapjack crumbs still round my mouth and a pile of them on the counter, looking slightly crazed (!!), so I just said, "Pregnancy cravings" and she smiled and said, "Oh right!" Hehe! I loved that moment :) That will go in my memory treasure trove of moments I've longed for and finally relished, even though it's obscure and silly!
Anyway then I came home and Neil got home not long after. I lay down to show him Bean's heartbeat with the doppler, but I could NOT find it at all. I was patient at first, for like five minutes. I got some good placenta sounds which we both marvelled at. But Bean was being elusive, and despite the healthy heartbeat from earlier, I did start to freak out very slightly because I had gone over every square millimetre of my pelvic area at all angles, and I could not find any heartbeat. Neil was all calm though, he said maybe Bean was hiding and I would just have to try another time. He's so calm about things, it's just his way. I am the opposite (as you may have noticed by now!).
Well I went upstairs to pee incase that helped, but it didn't seem to. I have a TON of air in my lower abdomen which was rumbling and squeaking (!!) noisily right where I wanted to focus and listen for Bean, tsk. Anyway, I was about to give up in total despair when Neil said, "Let me try" He put the wand lower than I thought, right near my pubic bone, and angled it upwards, and I was about to tell him that's all wrong in a very grumpy hormonal way (!!), but before I could say it, there was Bean's heart, kerplonkerplonkerplonker just like before, only quite distant sounding this time. I managed to get it a little clearer and then we just listened in awe. It was so cool. I sort of had this mental image of Neil getting super excited or emotional, but he did neither (which slightly bugged my irritable-pregnantness at the time!), he just listened quietly and didn't say much. I know he was impressed though. I really really have a baby in there!! It's so unbelievable! :D
We listened for about 5 minutes, quite a long time. I counted the heartrate again for a minute and it was 173. I could listen to Bean permanently, I mean, it's so hard to turn the doppler off! I LOVE this feeling of "contact" with my baby. I have done some serious bonding today, no doubt about that. Without even trying as well.
Gordon phoned while I still had the doppler on, to ask how we were doing, and Neil answered the phone. When he asked how I was and how the baby was doing, I turned up the volume on the doppler and he was soooo excited, bless him! He could hear Bean's heartbeat down the phone, even from across the room, and he was so thrilled by it. Katie (his wife) is about 24 weeks pregnant and he said he has never heard their baby's heartbeat. I guess he couldn't make it to the antenatal appointments. He asked if it would be okay if Katie came round one day and tried the doppler on her bump. I said YES, what a great idea! I didn't even think of sharing it with my pregnant friends (I only have one so far though!), how cool that is!! I can't wait to show her how to find her baby and to hear the heartbeat with her! I hope Gordon will come round too, I'd love for him to hear his baby's heartbeat. I'm sure he will.
Um, what else happened today? I can't remember really, not much else. When I first heard Bean, I couldn't think of anything else at all. Mummy asked what I had been up to and I said, "I don't know!" She asked what I was going to do today/tonight, and I said, "I don't know!" Because I really didn't. I couldn't get my brain to understand anything, I just felt fuzzy in my head with euphoria and awe and just lovely amazing feelings. Nothing in my whole life had any relevance at all at that moment. Everything was overshadowed by hearing my own child's heart beating inside me. So so completely amazing.
Anyway that is my day! Tomorrow I will listen for Bean again, and try not to get freaked out if it takes me a while to find her. She is only 2.2cm long after all! Tomorrow she should be exactly one inch long, crown to rump. She is getting quite big really, even though she's still tiny! I'm gonna feel so silly reading all this back in years to come if Bean is a boy, hehe! Oh well. I really don't think she is a boy, but if I'm wrong then oh well. I am just so happy right now with Bean.
I have to pee (yay!) and I feel sick (uhh, yay?!) so I will finish for now. Another update soon though! :)
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