Eureka!

We decided to rent a Doppler to hear the baby’s heartbeat.  I had heard mixed feelings about looking for the heartbeat, especially so soon. When I told my mother we were renting a Doppler she told me, on more than one occasion, that she didn’t like the idea.  “Keep faith!”  She said to us.  “You don’t need to stress yourself out with that.”  I will keep faith, but being the anxiety prone person that I am, I couldn’t wait to hear our child’s heartbeat to make sure everything was working fine.  Sure, when other people don’t hear it right away they may freak out, but that wouldn’t happen to me…

So when the Doppler came in the mail yesterday, I was excited to try it right away.  We had an appointment with Heather’s OBGYN later in the afternoon and I planned on asking her to help us learn how to use it so we didn’t have one of those episodes of freaking out that I had read about.

However, as I was reaching into my backpack to take the Doppler out and ask if she could show us the baby’s heartbeat she said, “And then there are those people who want to find the heartbeat around this time.  It’s just too soon!  But, they’re a little bit crazy, you know.”  I slowly dropped the device back into my bag and made believe I was pulling out some chap stick.  “Air is dry right now.  My lips are smarting.”

We went home feeling a little bit disappointed that we hadn’t received any data from her.  As soon as we walked in the door, though, I made preparations to gather our own data. 

Directions read. Aquasonic Ultrasound Gel on the face of the probe.  Place probe on Heather’s stomach.  Hopeful smiles on both our faces…

and nothing.  

Ok.  No big deal.  Got to search for the beat.  Wait… What’s that?  I think it is… It’s a heartbeat!  But something’s wrong.  The display is only saying the heart rate is at 70.  It is supposed to be between 120 – 180 beats per minute.  So why was our baby’s heart only beating 70 beats per minute? 

Of course, now I am freaking out.  If we didn’t find a heartbeat at all, I could assume it is just too small to hear right now, as everyone told me.  But we did hear a heart and it was slow. 

With a little help from my wife, and my good friend Eric, who is going through this process with his wife 12 weeks ahead of us, I was able to calm down and assume that what we heard was the blood flowing through Heather’s arteries.  I was content to just wait until our next doctor’s visit.

But then today came.  “Let’s give it one more try,” I said to Heather. 

“Really?  Not again.  It’s not big enough yet.”

“Come on…” I pleaded.

Within a few minutes we picked up a sound much faster than the heartbeat we heard last night.  We had found it!  Eureka!  Our little guy (or girl, as Heather corrects me) is doing well and working hard to grow.   

I recorded what we heard and made it available for you to hear, too.  I’ve created another page linked to this website where I will place all the recorded heartbeats.  I will try to keep this page updated each week with new ones.  

If you want to hear it yourself, click on the link and then download the attachment on the new page.  You will have to have Windows Media on your computer to play it.  So sorry iPads and iPhones!  

Baby Heartbeat