Seeing our Peanut's Heartbeat

Being married to a doctor can be tough. Missed holidays, cold meals, lonely days... but one thing I was really worried about going into this pregnancy was John missing all the important appointments. The Big Ones. The first ultrasound. The first heartbeat. Finding out the sex.

Well, luck was with us because John had a rotation this past week where he didn't have to work until the afternoon! I crossed my fingers and called my Ob-Gyn to see if I could change my appointment on Monday March 25 from 2pm to earlier. It took a couple of calls, but they finally had a cancellation and John was able to come!! It was our official first Ultrasound visit. We started off the morning with breakfast at Denny's. It felt funny to be on a date when it was technically a work day for both of us:) We finished quickly and decided to head to the appointment a bit early.

I had been holding my breath for the past week and a half because my symptoms had subsided since week 7. I hadn't felt nauseous at all in the past week and I felt like my pre-pregnancy self, besides a little soreness in my chest. Technology may have it's advantages, but all that googling my (lack of ) symptoms did was make me petrified that something was wrong. I was so nervous and jittery in the waiting room as I filled out the paperwork on our family history. I looked over at John, and he was as cool as a cucumber, absorbed in a Sports Illustrated Magazine article on March Madness. He is always the rational one.

As soon as we entered the ultrasound room, I told the tech. my fears. She didn't make me wait to use the vaginal ultrasound. Instead, she used the wand on my belly and found a heartbeat immediately. I was so relieved!! As I went to the bathroom to prepare for the more in-depth ultrasound, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. God had been good to us.

For the next five minutes, with John's hand in mine, we got to see the most beautiful and amazing images of our little jellybean (that's how big you are now!)  We saw his or her little heart beating at a fast 176 beats per minutes. The ultrasound tech. doodled on a picture for us, showing us where the head and bottom was. But when she wrote HEAD, only the HE fit!  I laughed and asked her if she was making an early prediction. :)
She told us before we left not to be scared if we couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat at the next appt. I guess I have a tilted uterus which can make it difficult to hear in the early weeks.

8 weeks 3 days

John and I were soon sent back into the waiting room for the second half of our appointment; the meeting with the nurse. John right away had his head stuck in a magazine on the Syracuse Basketball Team. He's always so calm and collected. I wonder if it will take the actual day of delivery for him to realize that a real  baby is entering our lives:) We had to wait for a while and John ended up having to go to work. I met with the nurse and took home lots of reading materials to read up on our little one. It was just a really, really wonderful day. I genuinely felt truly happy in the moment and I'm glad John was there to make the experience perfect.