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On my second prenatal visit, the doctor used a heartbeat monitor to listen to my baby's heartbeat. It gave me a reassuring feeling that my baby was doing well. I was very excited to hear the sound of my baby's heart pounding.

When I got home, I decided to purchase a heartbeat monitor. I thought it would probably make me feel better if I could monitor her heartbeat whenever and whereever I wanted to. And since I have had a miscarriage in the past, I wanted to make sure this time that I would be able to tell early if something was to go wrong. So I bought a $100 bebe monitor from an online store. The heartbeat monitor is similar to what is usee\d at the doctors office. It was digital and measured the baby's heartbeat per second. It displayed the heartbeat on the monitor and you can listen to the heartbeat through the speaker.

When I first got the baby monitor, I didn't know what sound to really listen for. I read online that the best spot is on the left or right side and right on top of the pubic bone. I tried and tried but could not get the 160bps that I heard at the doctor's office. The only beat I was hearing and seeing on the screen was 70bpm which I didn't know if it was the baby's or mine. I was getting scared that it could be the baby's heartbeat since I had it on the spot recommended and the heartbeat was loud and clear. I started to worry because the beat was extremely low for a baby. The normal heartbeat for a baby during pregnancy is 120bpm to 160bpm. I couldn't stop worrying so I called the doctor's office. But because it was the weekend, the office was closed and so they had an on call doctor call me back. I explained what I did and she said I should not worry. She said that home heartbeat baby monitors may not work as accurately as the monitors they use at the doctor's office which can detect the baby's heartbeat in the early weeks. She also mentioned that most heartbeat monitors for homes don't detect the heartbeat until sometime in the second trimester. The doctors don't normally recommend pregnant women to test themselves at home because if the reading is wrong most pregnant women will start stressing out.

A month later, around the end of June, we decided to go to Orlando for four days with a vacation package that we had bought a few months earlier. And wouldn't you know, I started spotting on the drive down. Of course, as usual, I started to get nervous. But this time I had my heartbeat monitor which allowed me to check and make sure my baby's heartbeat was normal. So this time around I didn't call the doctor's office, since I already knew what they would tell me. Later on the day, the bleeding stopped.