Thursday, June 12, 2008

A visit to the "Baby Dr."

New experience #(I wouldn't even venture a guess): a visit to an OB-GYN! Yes you read right. I accompanied my son and daughter-in-law to the "baby dr." today. You are probably asking yourselves "what the hell for?" Well, let me explain. I have never heard a baby's heartbeat. My kids wanted me to hear my grandaughter's heartbeat, so they asked me to go along with them. (*NOTE: When Tilly and I were having babies over 32 years ago, dads weren't included in the process, past conception. No office visits, no delivery room, no nothing.)
We enter the office. We're the first one's there. Lil Bro introduces me to the nurse. She said "welcome Grandpa." All goes well until this lady about my age comes in. She looks at me like I am a alien from Mars. I know she wondered why I was there. Of course, I could about guess why she was there. She was there for the GYN part of the office, certainly not the OB part.
We get called back to the exam room, and the Dr. comes in. He looks like he's about 15 years old, but seems to know what he is doing. After measuring Sistah's tummy with a tape measure, he smears this gel on her tummy, picks up what looks like a small radio with a microphone attached and starts rubbing the mike on her tummy in the gel. Like the miracle that it is, suddenly I could honestly hear my new-to-be granddaughter's heart beat, loud and clear. WOW! I couldn't help but stand there in awe with this stupid (I'm sure) looking smile on my face. "That's my granddaughter," was all I could think. Wow! Then in few seconds of melancholy, I thought how cool it would have been if Grandma could have been there, too. My eyes misted over, not so much from the sadness of that thought, but from the marvel of it all. Science has come so far since my children were born.
It's been over 3 hours since then, but I am still on cloud #100+, and reeling from the experience.
I know I can't be in the birthing room, but believe me, I will be as close as possible when my little granddaughter arrives.

1 comment:

Greyhound Girl said...

It so great that you could do that!!!! It's it amazing? Sometimes technology is just wonderful!