Heart Beats

This morning was probably one of the most intense mornings of my life (that I can think of).

Let me start from the beginning.

At 8:30am today I was supposed to have a Dr's appointment. Every 4 weeks I meet with my family Doctor to check on baby's progress. Last night we had a huge snowfall, which made us think we might not make it. Thankfully we did, and the roads were actually not that bad. Anyway, I was very excited for this appointment because last time (so a month ago) my Doctor said we would try and hear the baby's heartbeat. I have been told that hearing your baby's heart beating is one of the most amazing sounds, and I was very ready to hear it.

8:30am came. We sat in the room with the Doctor, and she asked us the general questions. Finally she asked me to hop up on to the table and we got ready for the best thing to happen. We waited. And waited. She tried 3 different machines and tried for over 30mins. There was nothing.

Now for all of you mom's who might be reading this, I am sure you can sympathize with my next statement. I thought one of two things. Either the baby was dead OR I was have a chemical pregnancy and it was just my body playing a cruel trick on me.

After shedding a few tears, my Doctor realized that I needed some sort of conformation as to what was really going on. The whole time being VERY positive, which was helpful but not what I really wanted. Thankfully my Doctor has an absolutely huge heart and she called over to the hospital next door to see if they had time for a quick ultrasound. They had no one waiting so we walked over, hardly waited any time, and then I was called in to the room.

I have heard many different stories about people getting ultrasounds, and I pictured the worst. Grumpy tech, not being allowed to ask questions, etc. I lay there silent just waiting and praying. FINALLY, the tech said that they baby had a very strong heartbeat. Again I started to cry. Not out of fear or sadness, but out of pure joy and thanksgiving! My one fear (so far) was proven wrong. There was a little baby inside of me. As she kept going and taking pictures she would make comments like "I can see your baby's bladder, that's a great thing" or "Your baby has 2 arms and 2 legs!" (to which I replied "That's exactly how many it's supposed to have!"). I was so thankful that she was walking me through step by step of the things she was seeing.

Once everything looked okay and everything she needed to look at was done, she called Marc in. Together we watched our little baby squirm around and stretch. It truly is a miracle of God that women and men are able to make something so wonderful!

Finally she made the comment that we were a little off on our due date. It turns out that we are only 14.5 weeks (roughly) along, not the 18ish weeks that we thought we were. She said that the new due date is looking like it will be at the end of May (the 23rd is what she said). This was why it was hard to hear the heartbeat with our family Doctor. But by this point we were so thankful that we even still had a due date!

As Marc and I were walking back to see my family Doctor I told him that sometimes when things happen to me I try and write them in my head as I would a facebook status. Then I told him that today it would have been something like "When God closes a door, He always opens another one. This time it was a door to the ultrasound room to see our baby!".

We couldn't be happier! And I think for the first time this whole baby thing is feeling real for both of us. We are just so thankful that we have a healthy baby who is growing at the right pace and with no complications (that the tech could see).

And now we wait.