Our baby is still moving & has a heart beat (but no answers)!

Our appointment this morning was relatively uneventful. Our OB (a different one in the practice than we have dealt with mostly this past week) tried to find our baby’s heartbeat/rate on the Doppler and was unsuccessful. She said my c-section scars could contribute to that. She did a quick ultrasound to see if the baby was moving and/or if there was a heartbeat. We saw both! It was reassuring, but she didn’t have the technical knowledge (since the tech wasn’t there to help) to measure the rate or the baby’s size. She said she thought the heartbeat did look irregular. She didn’t have much to say about a possible block in our baby’s heart. However, she did offer yet another theory of what could be going on with the fluctuating heart rate. Our OB said that at this point in pregnancy there are two nervous systems developing in the baby. She explained that one makes the heart rate speed up and the other makes it slow down. She said that at times they can sort of compete for the heart rate and thus our baby’s heart rate may be less stable because it is not mature yet. So who knows?!

The blood test results from Saturday night were not in and our OB wasn’t sure why we were told they would be. So basically she didn’t have any answers for us. That was disappointing. She told us to keep our previously scheduled u/s appointment for Thursday and hopefully we could find out more then, especially if the blood test results were in. She has us schedule our next OB appointment for two weeks from today (Monday, January 7). She also gave us a referral for the echocardiogram that the other Dr. we dealt with last Thursday (and who was consulted with on Saturday night) had requested that we get between 14 – 16 weeks. So I will call our local children’s hospital (aptly named “Hope”) this week to schedule it.

So that’s all we know. We are encouraged that our baby was still moving around today and appeared to have a heartbeat! It just frustrating to have gone into the appointment believing that we would get more answers. I am no longer on bed rest, our OB said that was more precautionary because of the bleeding I had on Saturday. So that is nice, as it will make it easier to participate in and enjoy our family Christmas celebrations tonight and tomorrow!

Thank you for your continued support, encouragement, positive thoughts, sticky vibes and prayers! I am doing my best to focus on enjoying and making these next few days special for Sean, Bob, our families and me. Waiting and wondering is a part of life and though it is a challenge to not know our baby’s fate today, Christmas Eve, we find comfort in knowing that as of this morning our miracle baby was still very much alive and it’s heart was beating!

I wish you and your families a very merry Christmas! Assuming the next few days continue to be uneventful pregnancy-wise, I will check in on Thursday at some point after our u/s. Take care and may God bless you and yours this Christmas and holiday season.