Baby's Heartbeat!

We had our first pre-natal appointment today! I was very excited, but not so much at the same time. I hate needles! And I knew I would have to get blood drawn and I was hoping (or not...) to get a flu shot & H1N1 shot. But what we heard before 5 vials of blood and an H1N1 shot, was totally worth it!

I was hoping that we would have an ultrasound done, as I had heard from several people that they had had one done at about 12 weeks. We didn't. But our nurse midwife, Carrie, did bring in a fetal Doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Carrie found our baby's heartbeat right away. It was so fast! Then she moved it around and found my heartbeat. My heartbeat was about 70 beats per minute (bpm) and baby's was about 150 bpm. More than twice as fast! It was such an amazing sound to hear!

I was convinced that our baby is boy, but after I read some folklore on the sex of the baby, I'm not so sure. The site I found said that if the baby's heartbeat is over 140 bpm, then it's a girl. That doesn't totally convince me either though, because the same site also said that if you don't have morning sickness, then it's a boy (and I haven't really been sick at all). So at this point I'm not convinced either way. I will be happy either way, but Adam still is leaning more towards a boy.

Carrie also recommended that we have a level II ultrasound done, because we have some genetic defects that run in the family. From what I could find, a level II ultrasound is a very detailed ultrasound that shows your baby a lot more clearly.

Our due date was calculated to be June 1 (I calculated June 2, we must be pretty close) and our next appointment will be at about 16 weeks.