This morning, Mom, Jonathan and I drove up to the birth center where Jonathan was born for my first prenatal checkup with our midwife.
She was so happy to see Jonathan, but he did not understand the part about this being where he was born. (What? He didn't recognize it?!)

She said I'm looking great (I'm feeling great!) and we did the various statistical measurings. I don't think I'll post those numbers, but if you really want to know, you can email me and I'll tell you. What I will tell you is that she did not do an internal exam to feel the uterine size, but instead did the measuring. Sure enough, 13.5 cm - and I'm thirteen and a half weeks! Yay for no internals... (And for those concerned, don't worry, I'll go to my regular doctor for the regular gyne stuff when it's time.)

As usual, I asked her not to use the Doppler, so she took out the fetoscope. Neither of us were sure of hearing a heartbeat with that yet, but she actually did get a faint one! As she was pressing down with it, I'm pretty sure I felt him move under it, and then she said, "He keeps moving on me!" How fun!

She took some bloodwork while Jonathan was nursing, and either she's the most gentle needle-poker I've had, or nursing reduces pain in the mother as well as the baby!

As we left, I got to see a brand new, born this morning, Amish baby. Ah, lovely.
Posted by Heather Daley on December 14, 2005, 3:39 pm | Read 2520 times
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I'm glad the visit went well! It's amazing that she got a heartbeat this early. We don't use Doppler, either, so the wait until 20 weeks was sooo difficult. But once it hit, we borrowed a fetoscope and listened to the heartbeat every day. It was beautiful, and so easy to find. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it! (We even have cute pictures of Maya trying to listen to the baby with the ancient fetoscope on her head.)
Posted by serina on December 14, 2005, 11:37 pm

When we were telling Jon about the visit at dinnertime, Jonathan said something very close to "I watched [midwife's name] measure Mommy."

I bet one reason people don't listen at home themselves is because they don't know you can do it. Even if you can't borrow a fetoscope, you can hear it with a stethoscope well, too. And even an ear to Mom's belly in the last month or two. (Mom can't do that one, but it's a thrill for Dads.)
Posted by joyful on December 15, 2005, 8:19 am
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