Her heart beats like a drum doo-doo doo-doo

It arrived as promised yesterday. The Doppler which doesn't appear to use any ultrasound technology to make it a Doppler, which wouldn't display the Doppler effect anyway.

Still, as a heart monitor it's ace.

It is this:







An Angel Sounds Fetal (arrgh) Heart Monitor. £16.99 delivered from Amazon.

I love it. I can easily - or sometimes with a bit of foetal chasing of a very very active baby - find baby's heartbeat which is reassuring and cool, I can also hear the swoosh of the placenta and the baby wriggling about. Makes it all a bit more real and less theoretical.

I envisage the baby as a girl, I think and refer to "she". "He" doesn't compute at all. But as I was quite convinced of twins I can't trust my own instinct. 2 weeks and 5 days till we hopefully find out. I shall cry if we don't and quite probably book a private scan.

It will take us that long to get a boys name, we need to know. Otherwise on day 21 of the baby's life we'll be frantically using Baby Name Genie before rushing off to register Hubert Algernon.

I think it's a girl. A boy would be fine, makes hand me downs (and teenage angst) easier, but I feel like (and hope) it's a girl. A bit. Girls do scare me somewhat, I won't be too upset if I get another boy, it'll still be a baby and health is paramount.

I do have a very hairy tummy. Not the whole thing, just the bit down from the navel. Conflicting old wives tales state that this means a girl or a boy. I had it with the twins (and am pleased to report that it disappeared before I thought to check after birth), although I'm SURE it wasn't as bad as this. I put the excessive hair sproutage down to two little testosterone pumps, but even if it is a boy it's just the one, so the theory comes down to: it's what I (or my hormones/hair follicles) do when I'm pregnant. The hair on my head is looking lush and healthy so it's not all bad.

I know, TMI. Sorry. Also, nobody that isn't either responsible for the pregnancy or a health professional is going to see the tummy (ever) so it matters not.

Back to gender predicting: the old wives tales can't decide. Wedding ring says boy, sweet cravings say girl. Clear skin means boys, but I had vile spots with twin boys. The Chinese chart says boy, but it also said boy for a fellow Oct 1st mummy to be, and she's having a girl.

I guess I need to wait and see. I know I won't care, I just want to KNOW.