The way it should be

Have you ever seen one of these before?

Neither had I until last night during our first prenatal appointment when Candace pulled this fetoscope out of her bag of tricks! Doesn't it look like a torture device?! When the baby gets bigger she'll use this to listen to his/her movements. We listened to the baby's heartbeat with a Doppler again and not only did we hear the heartbeat--we heard the placenta and the blood rushing through the umbilical cord! Candace explained everything we were hearing, which I really appreciated. The cord blood and the heartbeat sound very different. The cord blood is a whoosh whoosh sound, but the heartbeat actually sounds like a beat. We even heard the baby kick a few times (although I couldn't feel anything yet)--this one is feisty! When the baby finally held still, the beat was about 168--higher than last time, but that may have been because s/he was getting a workout trying to dodge the Doppler for five minutes. Candace also measured my fundal height and I was right on for 17 weeks.

We sat and talked for about and hour and a half and the best part was that this was all in our living room! I was laying on our couch listening to our baby's heartbeat--it was so relaxed and awesome! I feel so pampered having such personalized and gentle care. No rude nurses, no hospital gown, no cold plastic exam table with crinkly liners with Ortho Evra ads printed all over--just our comfy living room. We both love Candace and are even more excited for this birth after such a great visit!