Meet Frankie

• Baby Saves

• 01.06.25

“I was pregnant with my fourth child (Frankie), and very busy with my three older kids. From time to time I would listen to podcasts about pregnancy, as I was always interested in other people’s experiences. One of those podcasts was Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy Podcast. While I certainly didn’t listen to every episode, I remember seeing a new episode had been posted about counting your baby’s kicks. I had been vaguely educated about monitoring baby’s movement through all my prior pregnancies, but it always came across to me as almost optional and to not worry too much about it. 

Fatefully as it would turn out, this particular episode piqued my interest, so on my drive home from work I listened to the episode from May 9 where the host interviewed Kimberly Isburg of Count the Kicks. I was 33 weeks pregnant. The clear takeaway was that I needed to feel at least 10 kicks/movements from my baby per hour, and if I did not, I needed to contact my provider. 

Approximately two weeks later on a Sunday, at 35 weeks pregnant, I had a busy day with my family. In the morning, I remember feeling my baby move and thinking ‘here we go again.’ My baby was very active, and I was often uncomfortable because of it. 

But in the evening, after dealing with my older kids all day, it occurred to me that my baby had been quiet for a while. I continued about my day, not too alarmed, mainly because I was distracted with so much going on. I went to sleep that night, exhausted. At 2 a.m. though, I woke up in a panic. I still wasn’t feeling much movement from my baby, and this was very unusual. I got up and drank a glass of orange juice, as I had been told to do in past pregnancies.* I counted 10 movements in about 45 minutes after that. I was reassured, and went back to sleep. 

The next morning when I was getting my younger daughter up for school, I felt my baby again and was relieved again. However, an hour or two later when I was driving to work, I realized my baby was quiet when normally he was very active. I became very focused on my baby at this point and throughout my morning at work, noticed there was almost no movement. The message from Count the Kicks was fresh in my memory. Despite my experience of three normal pregnancies, I knew it was time to get checked out. 

I left work abruptly and went straight to Labor & Delivery triage. They took me back right away and hooked me up to monitors. I was relieved to hear what sounded to me like a strong heartbeat. But as they continued to monitor, they became concerned there was not enough ‘excitability’ in the heart rate and sent me for a biophysical profile ultrasound. Baby would not move at all in the ultrasound and got a score of 2 out of 8. The OB told me the baby would need to be born that day due to ‘non-reassuring fetal heart tones,’ and that I had done amazingly well to listen to my body and my baby to come in, because for some reason my baby seemed to be in distress.

Later that night, May 20, 2024, I delivered my son Frankie via C-section at 35 weeks 1 day. It turned out he was severely anemic, and he was born very sick. He spent 18 days in the NICU, where mercifully he made a full recovery. The doctors could not figure out why it had happened, or how, just that at some point probably a few days prior, something had happened to cause the anemia. 

What they did know, without a doubt, was that by coming in I had saved his life and his ability to recover. His birth began a completely chaotic several months, but Frankie is now thriving at home and meeting milestones. I am so incredibly grateful to have gotten refreshed on the important message of counting kicks when I needed it the most.” -Catherine H., Frankie’s mom

Editor’s Note: Research shows that fetal movement is best monitored without interventions like juice, candy, or drinking ice water.