9 weeks

At nine weeks pregnant, I went in for my first doctor’s appointment with my second child. My previous pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and I never heard a heartbeat.

This time I was nervous. I wanted to hear my baby’s heartbeat for reassurance—and I didn’t. Fetal dopplers, which are used to hear an unborn child’s heartbeat in the mother’s womb, are unreliable before ten weeks of pregnancy because your baby is tiny, and it’s hard to pick up sound waves from a heartbeat that is so small. My doctor noticed my disappointment and offered an ultrasound through a handheld device no bigger than an iPhone. It wasn’t the typical ultrasound I was used to in my other pregnancies, so I wasn’t expecting to see much. However, my only concern at that moment was to see a visible beating heart, since the chance of miscarrying drops dramatically after a detectable heartbeat.

Well, I saw my baby’s heart beating—and to my surprise, much more. At nine weeks pregnant, which was only around seven weeks since conception, my baby already had arms and legs. Throughout the ultrasound, she didn’t stop moving, to which my doctor said she had never seen such an active baby in the first trimester.

Throughout my entire pregnancy, she proved to be a very active baby, much more than my firstborn during my first pregnancy. Today, as children, my firstborn has a relaxed personality, whereas my second child is full of energy. From my own experience, I truly believe they developed the beginnings of their personality while I was pregnant with them. From the moment of conception, babies are unique individuals, apart from their mothers. I’ve always known this, but it wasn’t until I lived it that I realized what an incredible—and yes, sometimes difficult—journey pregnancy is for mothers.