Alder's Tone

Sarah had a sonogram last Friday, I wish I had been able to be there. Unfortunately like Lee and also working in the same place work was chaotic. I received a call though last Friday to say that Sarah had heard the babys heart beating. Apparently it was an amazing experience and she was on a high. It was pumping normally i.e. FAST. She also had some blood samples taken in order to test for a number of possible conditions. Strangely we will not hear at all if nothing is wrong, only if they need us to come in to consider our options with regards to further tests should these ones show up anything. I would have thought a quick phone call on the answering machine letting us know alls ok would have been a nice touch. To be honest though I am not losing any sleep over the results. Why worry about something unless it happens.

Anyway, I was not to be outdone and decided I too would like to hear the baby. Ok, so I may not hear its heart beating, but surely by this stage I would be able to hear something inside the womb if I pressed my ear against it and listened carefully. One night last week as we lay in bed I turned the TV down (not off, it was a crucial moment in an ice hockey game I was watching) and had a listen. What a racket! There were rumbles, swishing sounds, plops..."Wow, I can hear so much movement!" I said to Sarah. She peered down at me..."You know we had a couple of currys tonight yeah??". "Oh...."

I quickly and silently brushed away the emotional embarrasment of having welled up at the sound of a Chicken Dopiaza digesting and decided to try the next evening. There was no mistaking this time (it was pasta this night), I heard my child moving about. Its actually quite easy to describe, go to your local pool and duck your head under water, then move around. Thats it. It was not simply the stomach digesting food, this was one hundred percent something alive moving in a confined space. As I pressed against different parts of the womb at times it felt like it was a millimetre away from me on the other side. I had visions of it pressing the womb back and shaking its wee fist as I was causing havoc in its living room.

And so I've found another way of being involved. Every night just before Sarah is about to sleep I nudge her and ask for a listen. Sometimes it's moving about furiously, other times just little movements as if its sleeping. What I am looking forward to next is Sarah feeling movement. It should be at some point over the next 4-5 weeks at most. Cant wait!