Hiccups

Google should be shut off for all pregnant women. It should be absolutely impossible or illegal to google “early pregnancy symptoms” or “menstrual like cramping during pregnancy” or “spotting during pregnancy” or anything else like that until you deliver a healthy baby. My most recent google violation was “fetal hiccups”. Why oh why did I ever think that it was necessary to obtain more information on something so cute and sweet that my baby was doing. Of course now, I dread the hiccups like a dreaded seeing blood on the toilet paper in the beginning. Turns out that “excessive fetal hiccups” can be a sign of fetal distress. Of course, there is no good answer on what constitutes “excessive”, but it seems that 2-3 times per day is in the ballpark of excessive. Starting on a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been noticing the baby hiccupping and I absolutely loved it. Then it started to happen a little more frequently and this week we are up to 2-3 times per week. I mentioned this to the doctor last week, and he didn’t act alarmed at all, but also admitted that there are some studies that indicate that excessive hiccups could be a problem. He told me to keep an eye on it and report back at my next appointment.

Today, I had a slow day at work and I had noticed hiccups 3 times per day several days in a row and I decided to obsessively google this issue until I was sufficiently convinced that I would surely have a stillborn baby. I called the nurse today to let her know about this, of course, the doctor is out today. She called me back and told me that if a sonogram was necessary, there was a room available at the time of my appointment and that I had the last appointment of the day, so we would have time to talk. Somehow, this reaction on her part made me even more obsessive about finding out as much as I could about fetal hiccups.

I read plenty of reassuring stories of how several bouts of hiccups a day was completely normal, but on almost every site, there was one story about that one woman who didn’t think anything of the hiccups until one day, her baby no longer had a heartbeat. She was urging those whose babies had frequent hiccups to alert their doctors and insist on an ultrasound to ensure everything was ok.

So basically, I am just trying to wish away the next 21 hours until my appointment. Honestly, deep down, I don’t think there is anything seriously wrong with this baby, and I’m generally grateful for the ability to be proactive in his health thanks to all the information available out there (however alarmist some of it may be). I just wish that there would be a time when I wasn’t stressing about this baby’s well-being. Is this my fate as a mother?? I just want a healthy baby on the outside of my body.