Babble

After a previous miscarriage, a round of spotting in my second trimester this time around (at 15 weeks), and a recent diagnosis of a hypothyroidism, I have to admit it's hard not to be anxious with this pregnancy. I've heard of people renting fetal heart monitors so they can listen to the baby's heartbeat at home for reassurance, but I'm not sure if this is a good idea for me--will it make me more neurotic? Anybody do this, and how did it make them feel? I want to just be relaxed but sometimes it feels very hard. Thanks.

 I see it's been a while since you posted but maybe this will be of some use to someone else out there. When we asked our Dr. about the heart monitor he said "Don't get one unless you want a 100% chance of ending up in the hospital," as in, the heart monitor will undoubtedly not work right, and when you are unable to find your baby's heartbeat you will panic and be forced to rush to the hospital.

Well, when he told us this we actually already had one on the way in the mail. We didn't rent, we actually bought a cheap one one that was about 100 bucks. After speaking to the doctor we decided that we weren't going to use it for "monitoring" (the way you would plan to), but only for fun, and we wouldn't get overly worried if we couldn't find the heartbeat.

 It turns out that we were never actually unable to find the heartbeat (sometimes it would take a lot of searching, and the machine wasn't really very pleasant sounding). Though we've pretty much stopped using the thing cause it got old after a while. I would say if a miscarriage is really a big concern, you should get the monitor, keeping in mind that not hearing a heartbeat doesn't mean that its not there.

I must be the most worried pregnant woman ever. I have wanted every test, just to make sure the baby's still in there, and then been terrified until the results came back (all good so far though). I bought a fetal monitor online the minute i found out you could. It ended up costing about 100 dollars with shipping and I have to say it was the best money I have spent since the at home pregnancy test. Better than pregnancy jeans.

 The one time I have had to go to the hospital was when I DIDN'T have the baby monitor and I was on a trip and the baby stopped kicking all day. My dr. sent me to the nearest hospital and you know what they did? They used the same damn one to monitor his heartbeat, said, "he's probably just sleepy today." and sent me on my way.

My husband knows that if i start stressing out now, he can say, "Wanna listen to the baby?" and just that will calm me down.