Music to My Ears: Our Baby's Heartbeat

This picture was (is) a very accurate depiction of me.

Finally- after 5 1/2 weeks we had our doctor's appointment! I can't believe that our last appointment was two days after Ash Wednesday and this appointment was on the Tuesday of Holy Week. Maybe that's why this Lent seems to have flown by- I was waiting very anxiously for our next appointment.

Of course last night the pessimist in me came rearing her ugly head.

What if they can't find the heartbeat?

What if something has gone horribly wrong?

What if I bought maternity clothes too early?

My paranoia was a lot less than it had been previously. There was nothing going on down there that made me think that we could have lost the baby. However, any woman who is expecting is going to worry. Take a woman who has had a miscarriage and her worry is 100,000 times worse. Take it from me, don't ever tell a woman who has lost a baby not to worry.

But my fears were alleviated as soon as I sat on the bed/chair thingy in the office. The nurse pulled out the doppler (a doppler is a hand-held device that measures the baby's heartbeat.) I was expecting it to take a minute to find the heartbeat, but within seconds she found it and it was thump-thump-thumping away! The rate was 150... just right! A huge weight was lifted from my heart and even more excitement than I felt before came flooding in!

Now the next step is the second trimester ultrasound.... which means..... we have the opportunity to find out the sex of the baby!

A couple weeks ago I was on the fence about finding out the gender. Part of me thought about keeping it a surprise for my husband's sake. During a pregnancy, most of the attention is focused on the mother-to-be. But I was thinking that waiting to find the sex of the baby would be a special moment for my husband. After the baby is born and the doc announces "It's a girl!" or "It's a boy!" he gets to walk to the waiting room, just minutes before he was just a man, but now he's a father, and he's the one that gets to announce the news to the rest of the family. He gets to have that wonderful news in his heart for just a couple minutes before the rest of the world knows. I just always thought that would be a nice thing for him to do.

Then there is the "find out" camp. A lot of people say they bond better with the baby when they know the gender. That could be the case for me, but I think that I will be bonding with this baby no matter what. Others say that I'll want to buy baby stuff and prepare the nursery. Yes, that would be a huge convenience, especially for me who always wants to be prepared beforehand, but waiting to get all the girlie stuff or boy stuff wouldn't be a big deal for me.

Why do I want to find out? Because I HAAAAAAAAAVE to know! I just want to KNOW! I'm such a nosy person and I'm especially nosy about a person that's growing in my uterus! I am just too impatient... waaaaaaay too impatient! Plus, I've heard horror stories of those parents who DO want to wait, and the doctor or ultrasound tech accidentally blurts out the gender. I would hate for that to happen... so maybe to stop that disappointment we'll just go ahead and find out...

Thanks everyone who have been praying for Ryan, Baby C and me!

Oh, and just a little update: my pregnancy cocktail of irritability and moodiness has gone down a tad (much to my husband's relief) and my newest craving is soft-serve ice cream. Not any ice cream- it HAS to be soft-serve and thankfully the town we live in has it available everyday until 9:00 p.m.

St. Gerard and St. Gianna- pray for us!