Second Doctor's Appointment

I went in for my second doctor's appointment one month after my first. Not much had really transpired pregnancy-wise since the previous visit. First, the intern came in to ask me the standard set of questions:

Nausea? No. Vomiting? No. Bleeding? No. Fatigue? No.

I smiled at him and said, "I'm not really pregnant."

He gave me a strange awkward look, let out an uncomfortable giggle-ish sound, stood up and walked out of the room telling me the doctor would be in to see me in a minute.

The doctor came in and answered a few of my questions. She then took out the heart doppler machine to listen to the fetal heartbeat. She placed it on my lower belly (actually, I'm fairly sure that initially she was trying to listen to my pubic bone), but she wasn't able to pick up any sounds. She moved it around a bit, but still nothing. For some reason, I wasn't the least bit alarmed, but I did notice that she looked a little concerned.

Let me interject here that I've got a fairly substantial lower belly flap which I'm sure serves as a pretty good layer of insulation against the transmission of sound. Despite my surgery-related weight loss, this flap doesn't seem to have shrunk much - though I'm holding out hope that as I lose weight after the baby, it will significantly diminish.

Unable to hear the fetal heartbeat, the sent the intern to bring in the ultrasound machine. They gooped me up and fired up the machine. Wow - there on the screen was a clearly formed little baby kicking and thrashing all about. I was completely shocked that this early on in the pregnancy, it was so clearly formed and active to boot! For those of you who are reading this and have never experienced what I'm talking about, go to Youtube and Google "ultrasound, ___ weeks" and you can see all sorts of videos of ultrasounds each week along in the pregnancy. It's truly remarkable how fast babies develop into recognizable forms. For some reason, I'd always thought that babies remained jelly blobs until somewhere mid-way through gestation - not true!

It's very comforting reassuring to see your baby there on the screen in plain view - especially when you're a mad worry-wart like I've become during this pregnancy!