Heartbeats & dental floss

Since this blog is new, there are a few things I haven't blogged about yet that happened before this blog was born. One major thing was the heartbeat!

During my first ultrasound, I was able to see the heartbeat on the monitor. At that point, I was only 8 weeks along. At first we saw a flutter from the "jellybean" on the screen and she told me that was the heartbeat, then she made me hold my breath for awhile and we could see the heartbeat on the monitor. It was pretty powerful. This little 8 week old "blurb" already had a heart! It just gives me an entirely new view on the abortion issue, where you can abort a baby up till 12 weeks old ... Obviously, by week 8, it's a live being... with a heartbeat? This is not a politcal blog, so I'm not going to make it one... but it was something that was on my mind after this ultrasound appointment.

A couple of weeks later, I had an appointment with my gynecologist, and she told me that we were going to HEAR the heartbeat. Instantly, a million worries went through my head... the main one was: "What if we don't hear a heartbeat?" I can't tell you how long those seconds were, from the time she started pressing the "doppler" tool (no idea what the professional name is lol) against my stomach until we finally heard the heartbeat... I kept thinking "please find it, please fint it...."

And then ... there it was. It was so fast. Reminded me of a bird, the way their little hearts beat frenetically under your finger as you hold their little bodies in your hand. It was a steady beat, a very fast beat as the little bean was working hard to grow & develop ... and I thought "wow...already at week 10 in the womb, life is already a struggle..."

Listening to the heartbeat made this whole thing so real to me, it's concrete proof that there's another life in there that's trying to develop & make it into this world.... and it made it clear to me that I've got to help him/her as much as possible so his/her struggle doesn't get any harder than it has to be :)

My biggest lifestyle change has been that I've started flossing almost every night. After 30-some years of my dentists nagging at me for not flossing enough, it's finally happening. Turns out that a lecture from a professional was not enough, yet the only persuasion I needed was the heartbeat of something that's not even an inch long ...

Guess that's says something about what's to come....