There's an old wives tale, that you can predict a baby's gender by the speed of it's heartrate. The faster it is, the more likely to be a girl, and the slower, the more likely to be a boy. Every time my last OB would find my girls' heart rates, from my first appointment on, he'd always smile and say, "Well, that's little girl range." And, both times he was right. With this pregnancy, we had an ultrasound to date the pregnancy when I was about 10 weeks (since my miscarriage the month before had thrown everything off and we really had no idea what the due date should be for this one) and they found the heart rate, and we listened to it, but the tech never mentioned what it was, and I hadn't thought about it again. Then this week I had my 14 week appointment, and I got to hear the heart rate on the doppler. Paula smiled and said, "Well that's a fast 170 . . . little girl range . . ." I smiled back, this was the fastest heart rate of all three of my pregnancies at this stage.
Little girl? Hmmm, we'll see. (Probably sometime in mid-February).
What were your experiences? Did your doctors/midwives ever comment on heart rate/gender connection?
A few other notes:
• Still feeling quite icky all day. Not throwing up or anything, so I feel like I shouldn't complain, but I just feel icky and nauseous and horrible for hours and hours at a time, sapping my energy and will to play. I keep telling myself this should end any day now. In the meantime, I think I'm more grateful for Greg now than I ever have been before, and that's saying something. The nights I need it, he will come home from work, distract the kids while I go lay down, and take care of dinner, clean up (well, superficially, at least), and getting the girls bathed and ready for bed. If the girls are being extra demand-y for Mom, he'll come up with some errand to run, dragging the three of them out to Smith's or something.
• Besides hearing the heart rate, my favorite part was hearing the baby repeatedly kick at the doppler. My midwife would laugh and comment, "This one is feisty." I imagine this time little baby, curled up the size of a lemon, weighing in at less than 2 ounces, kicking at anything that disturbs it's little world, and already picture a personality forming. :-) My first two babies (both who have been referred to as 'feisty' from time to time) were notorious for kicking at the doppler/ultrasound wand. Annie was so good at it, that at half of my prenatal checkups the doctor was never able to even get a heart rate (there would just be question marks on the chart) . . . he would find the heart rate, start clocking it, and 'thud' there'd be a kick and Annie would roll away, and he'd have to find it again. He'd try this five or six times . . . get the heart rate for just a few seconds, then 'thud', roll. We had two different ultrasounds with Annie, with two different techs, both of which commented, "This is the wiggliest baby I've ever seen!"
10 comments:
I really think that you can't go off of the heart rate. Every single time I went to the doctor my doctor would listen to the heart rate smile at me and say "It's a girl?" At first we thought it was going to be a girl until we had an ultra sound and confirmed it was a boy. We were shocked because we only have girls in our family. So every single time my doctor would say "It's a girl!" I would correct him and say "It's a boy!"
Even though it was forever ago both me and my sister were suppose to be boys until the day my mom was in labor and then they decided we were girls.
Even though it is hard to wait I wouldn't get to excited until you get your ultra sound.
My boys moved way more then my girls and my doctor said the heart beat thing was an old wise tale!!! But I threw up more with my girls but felt more achy and nauseous with the boys and needed a lot of meat with boys protein!!!:)
I've never heard that about the heart rate thing. No speculation for me until an ultra sound where they say for sure. The waiting always kills me too!! I want to start shopping for little baby clothes and there's nothing gender nuetral these days so you have to wait until you find out for sure!
I heard of that when I had my first baby and it was a girl w/a fast heart rate. All 3 of my girls had fast heart rates and my 2 boys were in the 140s so by chance it was right for me. I never found out their sex until I delivered though.
My midwife would never tell us the heart rate. She would only say if it was strong or not - that was mainly just to calm my fears of ever miscarring again. I have to admit, I threw up way more with Maysie, but with this baby I am really naucious to the point you just want to throw up to get over with, but of course, nothing happens. I tend to have fiesty babies too. They are wiggling around so much I have been lucky to feel them move really early on in my pregnancies. With Maysie, I felt her move at 14 weeks and with this little guy inside of me, I felt him move around 12 weeks. :)
Dallins heartbeat was always under 140 but after all my visits I have had this time I have never thought to ask what the heartbeat was. It sounded really fast last time I went in for my 16 week appointment. But my next appointment I will find out what it is :) But every ultrasound that I have had this time around the baby is flipping and rolling and kicking and the same goes for the doppler it kicks it the whole time ha ha. We will see I hope that you have a boy this time around they are so much fun :)
Well, I had heard the heart rate/gender detection thing also. My midwife made jokes about it and said "well, there's a 50 percent chance that I'm right." hehe. Anyway, Isaac had a "girl" range heartrate, so it didn't pan out for us!
Sorry you're still feeling so sick. Blah. I hope it ends REAL FAST! I get the not puking but still feeling like crap thing...sometimes it would be easier to just puke and get it over with, right?
How many weeks along will you be when you find out?
I trust the 'heartrate old wives tale' about as much as I trust the Chinese Gender Chart -- pretty much not at all :-) But, then in the back of my head, there is a little bit of that . . . well, it has worked for me twice already (whereas that blasted Chinese gender chart has been wrong, wrong, wrong), that it makes me stop and think . . . :-) I won't be able to think about the baby as a gender one way or another until I've seen an ultrasound . . . and even then I don't feel 100% comfortable with the 'announcement' til birth. :-)I'll probably have an ultrasound around 20 weeks, maybe a tad earlier -- so February sometime, most likely towards the middle.
Oh, and when my Mom was pregnant with me, she was told 'confidently' by her doctor that 'it sounds like a boy.' So, apparently, my own heart rate debunked this old wives tale for my Mom on her first child. :-)
Well... I had some personal revelation on what your baby is going to be but have decided not to tell you. If only you were as righteous as me to get to know these kinds of things...
I will share my revelation...it is a boy and he will be born in June. Just sayin'
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