Heart and Soul

Boo! Your Mother and I misunderstood the Doctor last time. There was no photo shoot today- no sonogram, no pictures for the fridge (or blog (or the fridge's blog)). I guess now's as good of a time as any to find out that your Mother and I are not perfect. But, to be honest, it was Holly's fault; I am perfect. The end.

Moving right along, though, today's Doctor's appointment wasn't a complete bust. We got to hear your heart beat loud and clear again. Dr. Hagood jelled up this device that was about the size of an old school Walkman (I'll show you one of those in a museum one day) and put it to your Mom's belly...and out from the speaker came your heart beat:

Woosh woosh woosh woosh.

An antique.

It was really great to hear the old ticker again! It sounded strong. Dr. Hagood said "that's a good sound." Your mother replied, "I like that sound." It was a really cool moment.

Hearing your heart lifted my heart this morning. Yeah, that's the signature Weinstein sappiness, which you should probably get used to.

The device used to hear your heart: a "Doppler".

The device instantaneously counted how many beats per minute your heart was pumping out and the result is (drum roll please) 160 beats per minute.

This is pretty fast for a baby, but definitely within the normal range. But, there's an old wive's tale that says fast heart beat means the baby is a girl; slower heart beat means the baby is a boy. But, this is not scientifically proven. Not even the National Enquirer thinks that's true. So let's just let the theorists and predicters think what they will of these 160 bpm.

Officially, let's still say there's a good chance you will either be a boy or a girl!

Since you probably don't have a built-in metronome (unless the future turned out to be pretty lame), here's what 160 bpm sounds like.

Listen for the ticker...not the piano...



Actually, your heart was beating a bit faster than that! And it sounded really good.

Now if only we could figure out how to get a piano in there...

Dream Machine

Things have been pretty quiet on the Pregnancy Front for the past couple of days. Of course, your mother is still having cravings and aversions, still feeling a bit nauseous from time to time (though the nausea is waning), still feeling tired and has acutally been getting headaches semi-frequently.

But don't worry, headaches are a supposed common occurrence during the second trimester...which we are almost officially in. In fact, if my calculations are correct (which they're probably not...I was an English major, after all), then on this coming Sunday we'll be in our last week of the First Trimester!

Then, in the second trimester, the major action comes! The bump will grow, we'll find out your gender, and we might learn more about delivery and breathing and all that junk. But, I will be a little sad to see the first tri-mester go; after all, the first tri-mester is when you were our little secret! It's when you grew from basically nothing all the way up the small-to-mid-size produce section (from a poppy seed all the way to a lime!) It's when you grew from some sort of water-dwelling tadpole-like naked baby hamster-looking creature to be humanoid!

And the first tri-mester is when all of our dreams for you and our life together (and apart, if you ever want to spend the night at a friend's house...as long as that friend isn't a nogoodnick).

With the nausea, though, I seriously doubt your Mom will be as sad to see the First Tri-Mester end.

Speaking of dreams, though, I've been having a couple weird ones lately.

They all involve your mother, pregnant with you, doing extremely dangerous things for a pregnant lady to be doing!

In one dream, she went down the world's most terrifying water slide.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of that dream. But the next one was much more vivid. In this one your mother, more pregnant than she acutally is, ascends a long, winding staircase; she climbs higher and higher into the sky.

At this point, I'm growing more and more concerned.

At the top of the stairs it's revealed that she's on the world's tallest diving platform.

Despite my protests and abject concerns, your mother jumps off the diving board and into the pool far, far below.

I even woke up mad at her, but then had to remind myself that our inflatable pool is only 2.5 feet deep and that nobody, pregnant or not, can really be submerged in it, nevermind diving into it.

But don't worry, I'll make sure your Mom doesn't sign up for the USA diving team any time soon.

In the meantime, though, I hope you're ready- because next week (I think) you're over a third-of-the-way toward coming out into the world!