PARENTING ARTICLES & TIPS

Bebe Sounds Heart Monitor

The author of this article gives her personal take on the Bebe Sounds Heart Monitor ...

I have two sister-in-laws who really test my ability to deal with people who are clinically insane. Both of these ladies are currently pregnant which really pushes the emotional envelop of the extended family unit. Even the thrill of hearing an unborn baby’s heart beat using the popular Bebe Sounds product has become a reason for drama and general unrest in this very hormonal, unbalanced family.

Sister-in-law number one is a healthy, voluptuous woman who is very pregnant and a little rotund. I mean this in the nicest way possible. Sister-in-law number two is basically a runway model who looks like she swallowed a tennis ball. Needless to say, sister-in-law number two gets on everyone’s last nerve.

Since my rotund sister-in-law has been pregnant a whole month longer than skinny sister number two, I decided to lend her my Bebe Sounds heart monitor so she could hear her baby’s heartbeat. I did so with the warning that she may not be able to hear anything.

This warning comes from experience. I could hear everything through the Bebe Sounds heart monitor except for the baby’s heart. I heard the traffic running up and down my street. I heard my neighbor’s washer and dryer running but I heard not one trace of the baby’s heart beating using the Bebe Sounds monitor.

There is good reason for this. I lived in a noisy apartment in a noisy neighborhood next to a loud woman who had two loud teenagers. The Bebe Sounds monitor instructs users to go to a very quiet place when using the device.

My very hormonal heavy-set sister-in-law had no luck with Bebe Sounds, either. She tried using the monitor in dead silence to no avail. Her aggravation led me to instruct her to simply throw the thing away. We had to have gotten a dysfunctional model but I didn’t have the receipt or the energy to get another Bebe Sounds monitor. I just thought it would be best to let the whole thing go.

Skinny sister-in-law number two calls me. It usually means she wants something when she picks up the phone. This conversation was no exception. She wanted the Bebe Sounds heart monitor.

When I told her that we threw it away, she shrieked in disgust. I went on to explain that we bought a defective Bebe Sounds monitor but I couldn’t return it. Sister-in-law number two replied, “It probably didn’t work because you two have all that extra fat. The vibrations just couldn’t get through.”

She went on to explain how she would not have that problem. I went on to explain that I would contact my chubby sister-in-law and the three of us could discuss the whole thing together. Sister-in-law number two passed on the Bebe Sounds discussion.

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