A little scare

26 weeks

We had a little bit of a scare last night. Little man must be on a sleeping binge this week or turned some other direction because I've barely been able to feel him move. It always makes me nervous when that happens because I'm afraid something is wrong. I had noticed for the past couple of days that he has been more quiet than normal and definitely more quiet than when we were on vacation and he was moving all around. I got so nervous that yesterday morning, I busted out the at home heart monitor and of course, I found his little heart beat right away. It sounded strong and that put me at ease.

As the day went on however, he was still pretty quiet. I Google'd 'fetal movement at 26 weeks' just to see what came up. A lot of the links had other moms who were experiencing the same decrease in movement around this time. That made me feel a lot better and I had little movements here and there to let me know he was still in there enjoying life! I even realized one of the things I've been feeling (low, steady little pitter patters almost like a heartbeat down low in my pelvis) are actually him having hiccups!! He gets them a lot. I first noticed them on vacation but thought it was just him moving around. Now I know it's just him having hiccups!

Well, last night, I was pretty active all night cleaning and getting the house ready for my parents to come up this weekend. When we went to lay down, baby was almost uncomfortably quiet. I tried to poke my stomach to wake him up, shined a flashlight (only for a few seconds) on my stomach to see if that would make him move and nothing. After he didn't respond to the flashlight, I got a little nervous. I drank some orange juice to see if that would spark him up and still, not much. I busted out the heart monitor again and for the first time since he was really tiny and hard to find, I couldn't find the heartbeat. I tried to stay calm because my doctor has told me the problem with those 'at home' ones is they can cause unnecessary concern when you can't find a heartbeat. She said they aren't nearly as sensitive as the ones they have so if the baby is turned just right, you may not hear the heartbeat. Of course, none of this made me feel better while I was frantically trying to find it. Every once in awhile we'd hear a little blip that I think might have been him moving around, but at the time, it wasn't enough to satisfy my concerns. Finally after about 15 mins, we picked up just a few seconds of his heartbeat, but not long enough for me to feel comfortable.

Nick reassured me that's what we heard and everything was fine, so I made myself go to sleep. I kept waking up all night long and not feeling anything (which is normal for him but for some reason didn't feel normal last night). This morning I woke up and usually that's a pretty active time for him and he was just silent. I got up a little early, drank some orange juice and once again, busted out the heart monitor. THANK GOD I found his little hearbeat right away. Same place it was yesterday morning, beating strong and finally he started to move around a little bit. I've started feeling him a little more this morning so I'm starting to calm down.

I've started to realize that this happens almost every week too! LOL! I think he must be adjusting to my schedule at work and during the week must catch up on his sleep while I'm at my desk. It seems like he's super active on the weekends when we're on the go and by mid-week, I'm in a panic because he's slowed down. Either that, or I'm just focusing on it more when I'm just sitting at my desk. Going forward I'm going to try and just stay calm and not get upset when he's quiet unless there is a reason. At 28 weeks is when I should be feeling him a lot more and even counting his kicks/movements. Until then, I've got to try and keep the freak outs under control!