Home Doppler and Unreasonable Fear

I caved and bought a home doppler, which works by emitting sound waves that bounce off things in your uterus.  The main hope is that you hear a heartbeat.

At ten weeks, I knew it was a longshot, but we tried anyway.  Husband was cautious about the machine at first, and looked up several articles that explained the dangers and benefits of using one in early pregnancy.  After being convinced of its safety, he thought it was ok to use.  

I started that sucker up and searched for nearly ten minutes.  Nothing.   

At that point, I was ready to give up.  It didn't bug me as much as I thought it would.  Doctor's hate home dopplers, mainly because it freaks out the already freaked out pregnant woman and they get a lot of frantic calls when heartbeats can't be detected.  The reality of it is that heartbeats are not easy to find on a fetus the size of a grape.  Usually by the 14th week, they're detectable without much fuss.  Ironically, most pregnant women will not wait that long and will start searching at 10 weeks...like me.  Let the freakout begin!

Then husband decided he wanted to try.  For 30 minutes, he pressed the doppler to my abdomen and found nothing.  I was feeling a tad panicked at that point, not because we couldn't find the heartbeat, but because we had been using the doppler for a good 40 minutes.  Every site I had seen instructed use limited to 10 or less.

One midwife site actually posted that two minutes with a doppler is like 30 minutes with an ultrasound.  Knowing that midwives usually hate dopplers, and use only sound horns, I wasn't convinced of that little factoid when I read it.

Three days later, I've had time to obsess over the dangers of home dopplers.  Now I'm thinking the fetus is going to have a great life as a circus freak.  Did the sound waves alter his DNA?  Do sound waves give the fetus brain damage?  DEAR LORD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Ugh.  All this and a genetic testing appointment next week to discuss CVS.  If it's not one thing, it's another, I suppose.  I'm trying hard to adopt the "Que sera, sera" approach.  Whatever will be, will be.