Today I bought a fetal doppler! Yes, I have REALLY crossed over now. I will be able to listen to our baby's heartbeat anytime I want while laying nice in cozy in my very own bed, not on some hard, cold chair with stirrups. It should be arriving early next week., so excited to try it. The hubs laughed at me for wanting one, but I know he secretly wants one too. I have no doubt he will be the one operating the thing every week. He said it's money very well spent to give me peace of mind....assuming I can find the heartbeat. Otherwise, I will certainly become a lunatic! I will update when it arrives!
It has arrived! I actually picked it up out of the mail box as I was on my way out to go pick up Kevin from work so we could ride together to a joint appointment. As soon as I picked Kevin up from his work, I gladly hurried to the passenger seat so I could play with my new toy. I start tearing in to the box and Kevin says, " You're not really going to try to do that in the car are you?!" uuhh....duh. Need you ask? Of course I was! We all know I have the patience of a toddler.
So there we were, stuck in traffic, sitting beside a deisel truck with a driver who could undoubtedly see this entire scene go down. I was reclined in my seat, jeans pulled down, with fast food napkins folded in to my panties to protect my clothing from the goopy messiness of the gel, and with a large blob of sonogram gel sitting on my lower--very lower--abdomen. I have never been accused of being modest.
So I searched and searched and heard a lot of beating, all of which sounded too low for the baby, but too high for me. I kept messing with the doppler and repositioning the entire drive. I wasn't content with what I found..but we had to head into our appointment.
So after the appointment---I held off trying again on the ride back home, but I was on my phone googling how to best find the heartbeat. And don't you know as soon as we walked in the front door I was back at at. Kevin helped me this time to see what we could find. We were pretty sure we found it, but it was slightly confusing, as you can scroll across different parts of your abdomen and hear the placenta blood flow and my own femoral artery on the left side--or maybe even my vena cava, too. I don't know, for sure.
Either way, I decided to give it up for the night and get to cooking dinner and hanging with the hubs. BUT, don't you know it was on the agenda today to try to find a consistent HB on the doppler. So I worked for about 10 minutes mapping all the locations that I typically heard something and making logical assumptions as to what each sound was based on tone and pitch variations. (Like I really know! LOL)
Finally, I had found it. It was on my right side, always in the same general area, and I had to push fairly hard to hear it loudly and consistently. It was not a "swishy" sound but an obvious HB, just like what we heard in the doctor's office. It was about 155 beats per minute. How cool!!
Now that I'm content I will not use the doppler super often, as I don't want to unknowingly jeopardize anything with all the pushing on my uterus and sono waves passing through. I only bought it for the days that I'm freaking out and wondering if the baby is still in there. :)
Great investment for a chick like me! It is so surreal to hear that sound coming from inside your belly--knowing there is something living in there. There are no words.
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