More of Us
Julie is pregnant! She's about 13 weeks along and we are expecting our offspring to be ready for open-air adventures in October.
As far as names go, right now we're referring to it as "Alpha". That may change at some point, but I dunno. It has a nice ring and I like the sense of order and domination the name brings to the table.
So far, I've only been along to one appointment with the doctor (at 12 weeks), but that made the whole thing feel much more official. This particular milestone is where you listen to the kid's heartbeat using an awesome super electro-stethoscope.
Of course, listening for the heartbeat is similar to looking at ultrasound pictures in that it's not obvious what you are hearing. The doctor put the listener apparatus in place and it started making its listener noises and it displayed a number in the 160s. Then he basically thought he was done.
He just said, "That's the heartbeat."
To which I responded, "What am I hearing?"
Without missing a note, his witty riposte was "The heartbeat."
Noticing that Julie was confused too, I paused for a moment and put on my confused face while I gathered my wits. Then I shifted to my puzzled face. I figured the problem was we weren't communicating very well. I thusly launched into an interesting sequence where I would try to indicate and reproduce the various distinct sub-sounds that were emerging from the magic baby microphone, then ask the doctor if that one was the heartbeat or just background noise. I'm confident he thought I was an idiot.
Somewhere in there, I managed to work out that the number being displayed was actually the heart rate. I'd been thinking it was the device's sampling rate or something. Really they should have given me the manual so I could have had something to read during the awkward middle portion of our visit (which I've delicately come to think of as the "barnyard inspection").
Once I knew what was going on, I got all scientific. I wanted to know how Alpha's heart rate related to Julie's. If we got Julie riled up, did Alpha get riled up too? The doctor didn't seem interested in doing any experiments and I learned nothing. That was a bit disappointing. I mean, if you can measure something, you need to do experiments, right?
Confusion and awkwardness aside, it was a great experience. I think actually seeing a doctor and talking about baby stuff went a long way to shift my feelings from completely abstract to much more concrete. I suddenly feel like I need to build...something. I'm also oddly driven to take much better care of the lawn.
Meanwhile, I've got some studying to do.
As far as names go, right now we're referring to it as "Alpha". That may change at some point, but I dunno. It has a nice ring and I like the sense of order and domination the name brings to the table.
So far, I've only been along to one appointment with the doctor (at 12 weeks), but that made the whole thing feel much more official. This particular milestone is where you listen to the kid's heartbeat using an awesome super electro-stethoscope.
It looked like this, but with a slightly more industrial feel. Now I want to build one.
Of course, listening for the heartbeat is similar to looking at ultrasound pictures in that it's not obvious what you are hearing. The doctor put the listener apparatus in place and it started making its listener noises and it displayed a number in the 160s. Then he basically thought he was done.
He just said, "That's the heartbeat."
To which I responded, "What am I hearing?"
Without missing a note, his witty riposte was "The heartbeat."
Noticing that Julie was confused too, I paused for a moment and put on my confused face while I gathered my wits. Then I shifted to my puzzled face. I figured the problem was we weren't communicating very well. I thusly launched into an interesting sequence where I would try to indicate and reproduce the various distinct sub-sounds that were emerging from the magic baby microphone, then ask the doctor if that one was the heartbeat or just background noise. I'm confident he thought I was an idiot.
Somewhere in there, I managed to work out that the number being displayed was actually the heart rate. I'd been thinking it was the device's sampling rate or something. Really they should have given me the manual so I could have had something to read during the awkward middle portion of our visit (which I've delicately come to think of as the "barnyard inspection").
Once I knew what was going on, I got all scientific. I wanted to know how Alpha's heart rate related to Julie's. If we got Julie riled up, did Alpha get riled up too? The doctor didn't seem interested in doing any experiments and I learned nothing. That was a bit disappointing. I mean, if you can measure something, you need to do experiments, right?
Confusion and awkwardness aside, it was a great experience. I think actually seeing a doctor and talking about baby stuff went a long way to shift my feelings from completely abstract to much more concrete. I suddenly feel like I need to build...something. I'm also oddly driven to take much better care of the lawn.
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