Clayton and I had quite the scare this morning. I woke up late after a fairly restful sleep and normally the first thing I do is give my belly a 'good morning' rub but this morning my belly did not feel the same as it always did. My bump felt smaller and normally where it started at the top was sunken in. Of course at first I thought it was me being a bit crazy but Clayton said it felt a bit different too. I also had some concern with the level of my amniotic fluid so we went to Burnaby General to get checked out. One thing we were not told was if there was any issues to go straight to BC Womens hospital (where I'm registered to give birth) so the Burnaby staff made it clear that next time, I was to go there.
I had my vitals checked and the routine stuff but when it came time to check the baby's heartbeat, they couldn't find it. Which basically sent me into a state of shock as my physician never had any issues finding the sound right away. The nurse tried for what felt like an eternity and then left the room. Unfortunately I overheard her say 'I can't find a heartbeat' which nearly broke my heart. I went into a bit of a panic as I figured something was definately wrong. They tried another doppler and it too was not able to locate the little galloping beat. Last resort was an ultrasound which, very fortunately, showed a very active baby with a very strong heartbeat. Even though I should have had a sigh of relief then, the whole experience made me very emotional. The baby was positioned facing towards my back which could attribute to the difficulty of locating the HB as well as the shape of my stomach. Regardless I did feel better but this whole experience today has left me feeling pretty scared and shaky. I know I should feel very happy now that I have confirmation that the little one is doing fine and moving about but I still have a sense of fear and being overwhelmed that for a short time, I really thought my baby was gone. I don't wish that feeling on anyone. I realize that I still have some time to go (even though I'm half way through my pregnancy). I am really emotional at this point and I think it'll take me a few hours to calm down a bit and feel back to normal. The images on the ultrasound were pretty blurry and didn't show much. I saw the baby's head and possibly a little hand. But I definately saw the heartbeat.
My goodness baby Harbour, you gave Mommy and Daddy quite the scare but I'm glad you are okay.
Looking forward to October 23rd when we can see a better scan and get some pictures to share.
Thanks to the Nurses and Doctor at Burnaby General Hospital for being so great and thanks to Ginny and Laurie (Clayton and my Mom) for being there for us.
Until next week...