Squishy Baby

We got to see our cute little baby girl on ultrasound today. Yep, she's still a girl, no doubt about it. Shmuel got the eye of doom when the ultrasound tech showed us the tushie shot. I went "yeah, that's a girl" and gave him a look. The ultrasound tech was like "yep, it is...you have a girl already?" and I nodded. She asked "do you have only girls?" And I shook my head...one lonely boy. Poor Dovid. Well, he will just have to remain outnumbered for now.

She is definitely a cutie, though. I think she has the Chana B pouty mouth going on here. Can't wait to see who she looks like!

While the main part of the ultrasound at 18 weeks is usually to check growth and structures, our ultrasound had all that plus an in-depth look at baby's heart. A week or so ago I checked her heartbeat with a doppler. I had done a lot more exercise that day than I usually do - out shopping and cooking. When the day was over and hadn't felt the baby as much as I had the previous days, I was worried and used my doppler to find the heart rate. I could tell that the heartbeat was somewhat irregular and incredibly fast - somewhere between 210 and 240 bpm or so. I made sure to rest extra and then retested in the morning. No longer irregular, but still definitely over 200. So I checked again that night, same thing. At that point I would have sworn it was going above 250. The next morning it was regularly irregular. Like going beat, beat, small pause (repeat) - almost like a missed beat, but maybe not quite enough time for one. But this time it was super slow - like 110.  The day after that I was finally able to go to the midwife's office, and it was around 150 but still regularly irregular (beat, beat, beat, pause, repeat). Since we already had this ultrasound scheduled, and since there's nothing they can do about it so early, we waited the week to see what her heart looked like structurally and to determine what (if anything) was causing this irregularity.

Fast forward to today, B"H her heart looks structurally normal. We could see that it was beating irregularly, and everyone from the ultrasound tech to the MFM doctor agreed that her heart was having what's known as PAC's (premature atrial contractions). The doctor explained that most likely it's because all of this baby's "wiring" is brand new and hasn't matured enough yet. So, we're going to keep a watch on it. I'll have another ultrasound in two weeks to check that and also check my cervix again. (Cervix was looking fine today.) I was also given permission to go back on the beta blocker I was using to control my migraines before pregnancy. This might even help the baby get her heartbeats on track, but the big side effect that they want to check for is IUGR (growth restriction). I use the lowest dose, so hopefully it won't affect her, but they need to make sure anyway, and I'm not going to turn down a perfectly good ultrasound opportunity.

In other news, I just started my last clinical rotation of nursing school, and it's on the maternity floor at the hospital I go to. So far I've only been on the floor one day, but I actually got to participate in a birth (and hang with the mom postpartum). It was pretty sweet, and probably the best clinical day ever.