Already a pain in the neck!

Nickie had her 12-13 week appointment today, which was supposed to be a quick check in with the midwife. It ended up being almost an hour and a half. Why, you're wondering? It's because our child has already decided to induce anxiety in us. I anticipate this will only be the beginning...

Our midwife took the doppler out to find the baby's heartbeat. I assumed two things when she started:
1) The doppler would be a higher quality than the one we bought online for $70, which we use for fun at home.
2) Midwives, who do this daily, will be better at finding a heartbeat than we are.
Neither one of these things were true.

She put the doppler on Nickie's pelvic area after the gel slather. She pushed the doppler probe, then moved it, then pushed, then changed angles. We heard nothing but some static. After a few minutes of this, the midwife suggests that it may be the doppler, so she leaves the room and returns with another one. She reapplies gel, applies the probe, pushes, moves, reangles....nothing. At this point our smiley midwife has become pretty quiet and solemn. After about 8 minutes (aka eternity), she suggests that she brings in another midwife to try. Another midwife comes in and goes through the same motions. Still nothing. At this point, I'm starting to get nervous. I can feel my own heartbeat in my tonsils. The midwife then suggests we go for an ultrasound, "hoping" we could get it in today (what do you mean "hope"!).

We're off to the main desk to pre-register for the ultrasound, because gawd forbid we get the referral in AFTER we make sure Nickie's gut isn't carrying around a dead baby. We then run into the ultrasound room, where the tech casually fills out an information form, a requistion and enters all of Nickie's information in the computer. (Again, we couldn't have done this AFTER?! HELLO?!) Finally, the motions start again: gel, apply, push, move....and there it is- A heartbeat in a twitchy little baby, acting like we had disturbed her nap.

It was one of the longest 20 minutes I've lived through since my dad died(temporarily) in 2007. After my heart settled back in my thorasic cavity, I realized she was probably doing this to prepare us for the multitude of breathless moments she's going to provoke. What a little pain in the neck! =)