The Sweetest Sound

My general lack of impulse control resulted in the purchase* of a fetal doppler last week. It came yesterday. Last night, I ran upstairs with it, spent some time figuring out how to put the battery in, then covered myself in goo and gave it a whirl. For a while, I kept hearing my own heart and only my own. I finally moved the wand to the left a bit, and there it was. Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump. The sweetest sound.

I opted not to read the directions beforehand, so I had some difficulty figuring out how to get the digital readout to work and instead just counted. 158bmp. Not even remotely abnormal. Not slow. Not starting and stopping like the first time. P was truly amazed. I think he could have listened to it all night long. I know he wants to try tonight to figure out how to use the record feature so we can listen to it whenever we want without traumatizing the little one.

It occurred to me then that I had been opting to fake it til I make it thus far. After hearing that sound, for the first time I actually let myself believe that we might bring a baby home in September. All of a sudden it feels a little real.


*When researching rental, which was what I was considering at the time, I discovered that one of the rental companies also sold them. The prices on their rental website for purchase were far too high to justify purchase, but they also have a store on e*Bay, where the purchase price was actually the equivalent of only a few months rental, plus I can keep it and use it again or loan it to friends.