Simply Amazing

Yesterday (Tuesday), Emily and I got to hear our child's hearbeat for the first time. It was truly a remarkable experience. The doctor handed me a little contraption that looked a lot like a child's microphone/cassette-player set. He squeezed a little bit of gel on Emily's abdomen and then I put the wand/microphone from the doppler machine on the gel and voila! It was incredible to hear that little heart beating. If you pointed the wand in one direction, you could hear Emily's relatively loud and slow pulse (about 80 bpm), while in the opposite direction the baby's heart raced away at 160 bpm! The baby's pulse was also fainter than Emily's, but it was especially fun to point the wand in a 3rd direction and get to hear both at the same time. The book says that at this point in the pregnancy, the baby's ears aren't very developed, so I imagine that about all the baby can hear is mommy's heartbeat. I'm more excited every day.