Zippy lives up to the name

By kate on August 31st, 2005

Today was an exciting day.

We went to yet another appointment with yet another midwife, because even though we liked everyone we’ve seen, we didn’t feel any of them were just right.

This time, though, both Steve and I felt that we liked the midwife enough to choose her (and her partner in the practice) to be our care provider. It’s a relief to finally have someone chosen, after a while of worrying that maybe we were being too picky. Our first real pre-natal appointment is in a week and a half.

The really exciting part was when she offered to let us hear Zippy’s heart. After the disappointment of last time, I was especially eager to have some proof that Zippy is among the living. When the midwife felt for my uterus, it was significantly higher than it had been even a week ago, which was cool.

She pointed the doppler around on my abdomen, and twice we heard maybe 3 or 4 beats of Zippy’s heart before it faded away. She said this was because Zippy was probably moving around. He/she truly was being zippy, because it was hard to pin down the heartbeat.

After another agonizing five minutes or so of probing / listening / adjusting, we finally caught Zippy in a quieter moment and sat quietly ourselves for a minute, listening to the heart. It was cool. The midwifery student (a trainee) timed the pulse, and calculated it at 150 beats/minute, just what it should be.

The healthy range is 120-160 bpm. The midwife told us that legend has it that a faster heartbeat (such as Zippy’s) means it’s a girl. In the same camp, our next door neighbor is certain Zippy is a girl. She takes her powers of intuition seriously and says she’s never wrong. I personally haven’t had any motherly intuition on the subject.