Heartbeats

We had a midwife appointment yesterday, following a long three weeks since our last appointment.

The start of this stretch came when L had her third trip to the ER since we found out about the pregnancy. The first 2 were for migraines, this one was for bleeding. The intern at the ER (and it was a pregnancy-oriented ER) just had this awful look on his face during the exam. His tone of voice was such that you could tell he thought very bad news was coming. The attending was harder to read without being optimistic: "About 40% of women in your situation will go on to have a miscarriage, while 60% will be fine. Of course stats are worse for your age". But, we did confirm that New Baby was still swimming happily

So the midwife appointment the day after that was not a good one. Genny had a troubled tone in her voice - the first time I had heard that tone since she almost took L in for a c-section with J1. After carefully explaining that no amount of bed rest could prevent a mc at this point, she ordered L to stay home from work and school for 2 weeks. L had been having a miserable time with food and the migraines had not faded completely, so some recovery time was needed for that in addition to the events of the previous evening. The time off really helped reduce her mental stress level - which, it turns out, is the much bigger type of stress. Physical stress - as long as she is not trying to carry too much, or walk to far - is no problem at all.

Throughout this time between appointments, L continued to have sporadic troubles with bleeding. Nothing heavy, she assured me, but not nothing. Being in the first trimester, we have no outside indicator of healthy New Baby. So we were looking forward to yesterday's appointment a bit more than usual.

I will post about the two weeks off and the well-meaning world soon, but, on to yesterday.

So, yesterday, we get to Genny's office and we are once again greeted with worried voice. Genny does assure us that once in a while a patient will spot / bleed throughout pregnancy and have a completely healthy birth and baby. Of course, she also said that with worried voice. Finally, she got out her doppler and went to hear the heartbeat. I say finally only because it seemed to take forever - I am sure the clock put the length at no more than 3 minutes. Babies' heartbeats - at least my babies' heartbeats - are wonderful things; I love hearing them, they are the best part of the standard check-up. So, finally, (again, finally - but it took no time to find it) we heard the heartbeat: 185 beats and going strong. Genny is as relieved as anyone: now she is cautioning that we are not out of the woods in that tone that says we are, at least, leaving the woods.

We are sent on our way with a note preventing L from doing laundry at the hotel with smiles and another appointment in a month.