Hereditary Stubbornness

So, this baby is turning out to be a wee bit stubborn. It's no secret where he gets that from. I'm German and Irish...I can't help it. Add in choleric and that my MBTI fluctuates between ENTJ and ENTP (think Napoleon Bonaparte and Sirius Black) and it's game over. My poor husband.

Part of our hospital routine is every shift change, they hook up the fetal monitor and listen to his heartbeat for 20 minutes. It has to be a consecutive 20 minutes, not cumulative. So even if they get a good 12 minutes in, and then the baby wanders off for a little bit, we have to start over from scratch.

Being a night owl like his father, usually the morning monitoring session goes a little more smoothly than the evening one when he is more active. The first few days, he would cooperate, stay on the monitor with a strong steady heartbeat that was easy to find on the first try. The nurses gushed about how his heart rate was so good, and how he was so easy to find for being so young a baby.

Well, gradually that changed. He's adapted, and now he'll pretend to play their little game. The nurse will find him fairly easily, but as soon as she leaves to room, he maneuvers so that his kicks are perfectly aimed at the fetal monitor. Mark hasn't been able to feel the baby move yet, but when I'm holding the monitor in place at just the right angle to register heart rate, he can certainly see the monitor jump as the baby pummels away. Fetal movement doesn't count, only heartbeats. And heaven forbid I adjust my position ever so slightly, we might never find him again if that happens. For the past few sessions, the nurses have given up, called the doctor and asked them to review the strip to see if what they were able to record was good enough. Usually they say yes, and the baby, victorious, lies in wait for the next showdown.

So far this stubbornness has served him well. His refusal to hold still and cooperate was what earned us a second anatomy scan and most certainly saved his life. Of course, it's also been a bit frustrating for his parents. Originally, we had planned on keeping gender a surprise even for us. But once Tuesday happened, we figured this baby had enough surprises up it's sleeve and decided to find out. Since then, the baby, who was very happy to show off in the first anatomy scan when we were turning our heads away, has kept the legs closed leaving the ultrasound tech 85% sure that it's a boy. We're going to risk the 15% and have been referring to the baby as "he" ever since.

The baby is going to need this stubbornness in the long NICU stay ahead, I just hope that as he gets older, his stubbornness doesn't get him into to trouble like it often does for his mother.