Heart Rate

Had a crazy shake-up this morning. I don't have a lot of details because I wasn't at the doctor check-up today, but apparently the baby had an unusually high heart rate, up around 180 bpm. The doctor was freaked out enough to send C to get more extensive monitoring (Non Stress Test, or NST) over 30 minutes. The heart rate fluctuated between 140 and 210 bpm throughout that time, and apparently it would rise when the baby was moving. The doctor took this as a good sign of relatively normal conditions.

Of course, C told me this over the phone while crying--she was rightfully shaken and stressed out about the surprise experience--so I felt super helpless and confused. What can we do? Is there a way we can monitor in case this condition gets bad? Apparently not.

I met C at a McDonald's and though while I wasn't perhaps as comforting as I should have been, at least felt like I was able to be a little bit comforting. It was just nice to control something (i.e. travel the 1 mile down the road to see C and give her a kiss) instead of just sitting behind my desk and failing at finding answers on Google...

After calling my mom with the update I came to the conclusion I should probably go buy one of those at-home doppler heart-rate monitoring devices... and maybe calling the doctor's office to find out more about at-home monitoring we can do... Fortunately we've started our 2-week visits, so monitoring will happen more frequently.