ferrousland.com - diary archives
Friday, March 28, 2003
heartbeat - 11:00 AM
i had my second obstetrician appointment yesterday & i got to hear rudegere's heartbeat .. it was very exciting! i recorded it on my ipaq so that i could listen to it later. i played it for shroom & he seemed a bit excited about it, too. i mean, i knew that i was pregnant, but now that i've heard his little "woosh! woosh! woosh! woosh! woosh! woosh!" heartbeat, it's extra evidence that i have a little baby girl or little baby boy growing inside me.
if you'd like to hear his heartbeat too, just email me (my email address is in the menu. scroll if you can't see it) & i'll send you the wav file. it's 109k so it's not too big.
according to the books & pregnancy sites, he's about four inches long now at fourteen weeks. pretty amazing considering that only one or two weeks ago he was only three inches long. that's an incredible growth rate when you think about it. i wonder if he's getting any growing pains?
the day before yesterday, i went through two whole days without needing a nap during the day & i felt quite alright by night time. previously, if i'd missed out on a nap, i would have been absolutely over-tired by bed time & practically falling over. maybe the second trimester energy is beginning to appear. that would be very good. i've been able to walk at more of a normal pace for the last week or so (instead of walking like an old woman) & i can climb the stairs now without needing a rest at the top, so i guess there's definitely some improvement on the energy side of things.
i had heaps of questions to ask my obstetrician yesterday. i wrote them all down so i wouldn't forget. one of them was about lying on my back. everywhere i go, online, in books & by people i've spoken to, i've been told, "don't lie on your back!" apparently there's some vein or major artery or something that runs through behind the uterus somewhere & when you lie on your back, the weight of the uterus can push on it & cause the blood flow to slow down to yourself & to the baby. so at night i've been practically killing myself trying to avoid lying on my back. as if it's not hard enough to get comfortable these days anyway, not being able to sleep on my back has been driving me crazy.
so i asked him about it & he was of the opinion that it's fine. my body will tell me right away if there's a problem, he said. i think his words might have been something like, "you'll feel really weird & want to roll over anyway." what a relief!! it was driving me absolutely nuts trying to get comfortable at night, not being able to roll onto my back to stretch out a bit.
i asked him about some other things which i've been warned about too & his attitude was very non-alarmist. "everything in moderation," he said. well, obviously that doesn't count illicit drugs & stuff, but he was talking about things like caffeine & alcohol. i'm glad that he's a bit easy going about this sort of stuff. i mean, when you think about it, women have been having babies for thousands of years, with normal, healthy diets, which were bound to include some things which are just snacks or for the taste buds more than the body, & they've been having healthy strong babies. yes, there are some babies that weren't born healthy & strong, but usually there are extenuating circumstances.
you see, i was worried about having one can of coke every now & then & stressing out about one shot of alcohol i had a week or so ago. he reminded me that after about twelve weeks, the baby has done most of it's developing & is mostly just growing bigger, so it's out of what's perceived as the danger zone.
i'm feeling a lot more relaxed about things after having my questions answered yesterday. after all, stress isn't going to help the baby either, is it?
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