Flailing Limbs

When the tech first put the little one on the screen, it was laying on its back, still as a rock. He said he saw the heartbeat (I saw nothing but a baby not moving and my worst fears realized), pointed the little arrow at it, and nothing. No noise, and no movement for an entire 1-2 seconds. Did he really see a heartbeat? Was he guessing? Why isn’t there a sound? I killed my child with botchulism.

And there it went. Vum-vum-vum. And then…it moved. I’m not talking little movement, either. I’m talking flipping over, flailing it’s limbs, kicking and twisting as if it was on the olympic gymnastics team. I was surprised.

“Is it…moving,” I had to ask the tech because I wasn’t sure if I was insane or not.
“Yup, it sure is.”
“That’s…that’s…weird.”

It really is weird to know there’s a little one in there flopping about like a crazy person and I can’t feel a thing. It’s even weirder to know it has a huge head, and looks like a human. The weirdest thing, though, is this little, 3cm, big headed human is flailing around like a crazy person inside ME. I hate to make this all about me, but it’s strange to be pregnant for the first time. It’s just not normal.

We have a baby. A real, live kicking and flailing baby. It’s all of 3cm long, with a heart rate of 162 bpm. The baby is “growing like a weed” (so says the tech), and is measuring a week ahead of schedule. This is typical for my family, we tend to have long babies that are estimated to be extremely tall in life, but we never are. So even though he changed the due date to June 25th, I’m sticking with July 1st.

 He did, however, say that the food poisoning bleeding probably came from the placenta. It’s sitting over the cervix. He said that would, most likely, grow up with the uterus and it won’t be a worry later on. I’m trying not to worry about it and am hoping it will correct itself.

Filed under 1st trimester, pregnancy, ultrasound |