On Tuesday, I woke up to go to my usual OB appt. Nothing out of the ordinary. We got to the appt. and went in to wait for the Doctor to come in.
For those who don't know, our baby has a normally low heart rate. It never gets above 145 and is usually around 130 bpm. Our doctor still swears it's a boy. :) But at this appt the baby had a heart rate of 120. The doctor wasn't so nervous until the heart rate stayed 120 for the entire visit. He said sometimes with Boys they drop in their heart rate at about this time in pregnancy but it is usually only for 30 seconds or so. Also, when your baby is not moving/sleeping their heart rate can drop but our little girl was karate chopping the Dr. and we could hear it on the Doppler. She is an active girl and has always been. Everyone told me that I would probably not feel her until 18-20 except I felt her first kick at almost exactly 16 weeks. I could even see it. Just a few days later Randy was able to feel it too. And ever since that day she has always been active and I always feel her move and kick. :) I had not been feeling any decrease in her movement so I knew in the back of my mind that everything was okay. After a lot of questions and discussion, he came to the conclusion that we just have a tom boy in there who is going to love to play soccer. :P
The Dr. now began to measure me. So I'm 24 weeks and so my uterus should measure at 24 cm. Except I was only measuring at 21 cm. With the low heart rate and the fact that I was measuring 3 weeks small combined the Dr. decided he wanted an Ultrasound. They wanted to check to make sure the baby was growing correctly, the amniotic fluid was normal and that there wasn't anything serious going on. We know for sure that our dates are correct. We planned this pregnancy to the T. :) Not to mention, at our last U/S, our baby girl measured right on time. We left the office in a panic with the anticipation of returning 4 hours later for the U/S. I didn't want to go home because of the thoughts running through my mind of "What if's." Although my lovely husband kept reassuring me that everything was okay.
4 hours finally came and there we were back at the Dr. waiting to see our baby again. Last U/S, my bladder was not full enough so I made sure this time that it was. I had to pee so bad. When they called us back the U/S lady asked how my bladder was. I told her, "Oh, it's full!" I thought she was going to be so impressed with me....instead, she asked me to release some of it! Can you believe that? It was the most miserable thing. How do you stop your pee right in the tracks?! When I got backs she was like, "Umm, it's still a little full." OMG. Luckily, it was okay enough that I didn't have to try to release it again.
To skip all the details, our baby girl is completely fine. I just hide my babies really well which hopefully means I won't get as big. :))) (You can return back to breathing now!) :D She measures at 24 weeks, the amniotic fluid is just fine and when we checked her heart rate it was 143. :)) I don't know if she just doesn't like the Dr. or what! We got some lovely new pictures of her and reassured the Dr. that she is really a girl. :P I'll scan the pictures and post them.
We are just so excited and we can't wait to see our little girl and hold her. It's really crazy. I have been waiting for the big moment where I can really feel connected with her. And although I know that I have been gradually building that love, it was totally and completely reaffirmed when I saw her face so clear on the screen.
p.s. Randy told me although there was an inkling of a hope that we were really having a boy he is glad to know that his baby girl is still in there. :P
