Hearing the Heartbeat Never Gets Old

My second fetal echocardiogram in as many weeks. 

It's much less exciting than the ultrasound, since you can't see anything, just hear lots of beeps as images are taken and different variations on the heartbeat, as the technician measures pressure and rate at different angles and in different parts of the heart. It's also a very strange experience, as you are lying on your back--which all the blogs and books tell you never to do--and since you can't focus on what's happening, you spend a lot of time raising your own heartbeat worrying about work, or what to make for dinner, to the point that your stress is visible and the technician asks multiple times if you are OK. 

Hearing that heartbeat, though? It NEVER gets old. 

Before I could feel Baby moving, I would await the moment they'd put the doppler on my belly with both anticipation and fear. What if she couldn't find a heartbeat? Is it really in there? Even as your belly grows, and you know you are sharing oxygen with SOMETHING because never before have you been out of breath while walking and talking (not that COVID safety masks help with that at all), you still doubt that there is a baby inside of you.

Now, of course, Baby likes to do gymnastics at 5:00AM in the morning. Sometimes it feels like swimming. The doctor today said there was some Baby Pilates happening. 

All of which is a very good thing of course. When you know your baby's heart may be in distress, knowing it is still dancing around in there regardless makes you confident in its strength and resolve to be healthy and active. 

And that is a very good thing.

As for the results of the echo: nothing 'new' in that the ratio if the right and left ventricle is the same (left ventricle is still growing, but not as quickly as the right); coarctation is still there; the aortic valve is at 2mm, so, still small, and the pressure does not indicate any in utero intervention would work. The results will go to the specialist, now, so there may be a different diagnosis.

Baby's Heart (left ventricle and aorta), drawn by the pediatric cardiologist, showing potential stress on the left ventricle, as well as the narrow valve and coarctation