heartbeat – Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

And we have a heartbeat!

I figured I should probably just cut to the chase since I’ve left you all hanging for four days after finally hearing the heartbeat. I blame my husband; you should too. (WINKING! Totally winking here. The guy’s been working his butt off lately which just means less time and energy for me to do what really matters: blogging.)

After much waffling and foot shuffling, I finally decided that I should pop in for another listen. Hearing that several women I know have had missed miscarriages late in their first trimester was definitely an influencing factor. So was a friend just saying,”Go!” So I dropped the kids off with my parents last Thursday morning, figuring I’d probably have to wait around for a while and then I’d go in for my monthly blood draw at the lab.

Instead, my midwife saw me right away and found a crystal clear heartbeat in less than 30 seconds. It took longer to walk from the car. (Mostly because I refuse to pay for parking, but still.) What a relief! Now I no longer have to wonder if every tummy rumble and gas bubble is the baby moving or if I’m simply losing my mind. I can relax and let that first definite movement be a wonderful surprise.

I’ve also taken to squeezing into my regular jeans for as long as I can, which seems to make me feel less huge. So I’m not stressing about twins any more. We’ll find out eventually, but there’s really no good reason to worry. So all’s well and good in the pregnancy department, despite my tricky hip and lowered bladder capacity.

Chug a chug a choo choo, we hear you

We had our 12-week appointment with the midwife on Tuesday and were able to hear the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler. Colum said it sounds like “Chug a chug a choo choo”. That’s not an altogether inaccurate description, either, but I hope he’s not expecting a baby train. I’m already starting to show and my uterus is a bit bigger than my midwife would expect at this stage. She assures us that this is likely because everything grows more readily in second pregnancies. Since we are pretty sure about our date, the only other explanation would be more than one baby, but nobody’s buying that. Twin pregnancies are often accompanied by pretty extreme first trimester symptoms, but I had only the slightest queasiness here and there and typical fatigue. And there are no twins in my family. We’ll find out for sure at our 18 to 20 week ultrasound, but, like I said, we’re not really worried. Really, hardly at all.

There’s lots to say about midwives versus OBs and I hope to find the time to delve into some of that. I’ve given my notice at the restaurant for the end of May, so I’ve been picking up extra shifts while I can. This will be my last week of extra work, though, and I’ll just cruise through my last month working one shift a week.

Lastly, Colum’s at the stage where his internal dialogue is still external and it can be so funny. I just heard him in the hallway saying, “I going to ask Mom for another one cracker.” And then seconds later he comes charging through the door, “I have another one cracker, Mom?” Don’t you wish we could all be so transparent?