If you are a proud owner of Apple AirPods and are about to become a parent then you are in the right place my friend. Just keep in mind that I’m more of a story teller then a writer so please forgive my grammar or other mistakes.
As a future father to be there is nothing that I can compare to the time the love of my life and I went to our first doctors appointment and I heard our babies heart beat for the first time. Yes it’s exciting and a little scary when you find out that your wife, girlfriend or partner is pregnant whether it was planned or not.
In our case it was planned and if I’m going to be completely honest all the hard work was one hundred percent calculated by my fiancé. My biggest part was you guessed it, show up and do my best.
Thankfully we we’re lucky enough to get pregnant in the first few attempts while the sex was more of an adventure build on love making rather then necessity of getting pregnant. We understood it completely that with both of us being in our mid to late 30’s there was a pretty big chance that it could have been a difficult and stressful time for both of us. I think everyone has friends or family members that had a difficult time conceiving and moments like those can be really hard to recover from as a couple. For us it turned out that we were pretty lucky but if some of you beautiful people reading this blog are having a tough time trying to get pregnant we are rooting for you and we’re sending our best wishes to you.
As I mentioned in my first sentence I cannot compare the feeling inside me when I heard our babies heart beat for the first time. And I’m pretty sure most of you heard once or twice someone say that it’s different when it’s your own baby.
Personally I always just smiled, nodded and answered ” I guess we’ll see when the time comes.”
Well the time eventually arrived and when I heard that fast whoosh whoosh whoosh sound when our doctor amplified the volume on the sonogram machine it felt like a ton of bricks hit me in the chest and my own heart stopped for a moment just so I can listen to our babies heart beat.
The realization that we have created our very own human being was euphoric to say the least. Looking at my fiancé smiling with pure happiness made my insides melt like butter even though on the outside I tried to hold myself together. I was so overwhelmed that I had to remind myself to breathe.
I most definitely lost my marbles.
My next thought was ” If this is how I’m feeling then what is she going through?
I mean all this is happening inside of her belly.”
Ohhh boy if this is so life changing how am I going to react during birth?
Ok so I veered off course a little. I’m suppose to be telling you about the new cool way I found to listen to our little boy inside the belly.
After our trip to the doctor I was obsessed with trying to hear the babies movement or even the heart beat so I decided to Google everything that came to mind. Once I finished reading countless articles and looking at a gazillion photos I realized they mostly pointed to a handful of gadgets.
Gadget. Cost.
#1 Stethoscope. $10-$120
#2 Fetoscope. $20-$100
#3 Pinard Horn. $20-$300
#4 Amplifiers. $20-$40
#5 Doppler. $150-Couple hundred
#6 Fetal Monitor. Used professionally
Most of the items start getting useful at around 18 to 22 weeks of pregnancy. Only the Doppler actually works after week 8.
Then after what seemed like an eternity I finally couldn’t take it and decided to try out the stethoscope. So right after our 16 week sonogram I drove to the nearest pharmacy and confidently filled with my recent google knowledge I was determined to find the best stethoscope they had to offer. Come to find out pharmacies don’t really have too many choices in the store itself, apparently stethoscopes aren’t a hot selling item so the pharmacy had only two types available. On their website they had at least a dozen available but who has time to wait for days when I can just buy one now?
Eventually I chose one for $20 which then turned into $10 since I used the membership discount card. I figured Win/Win.
Wow was I disappointed. Turns out stethoscopes aren’t that exciting unless your baby really wants it’s presence to be known. For the first few weeks all we could hear was faint popcorn like sound which apparently is the noise baby makes when he or she decided to do a few ninja tricks inside.
Then around week 19 give or take a few days the activity starts to pick up and you can actually spend a plethora of your free time just glued to the belly.
Eventually you start looking for more and better ways to hear the baby moving around, specifically after each sonogram appointment. Every time you see the baby a bit bigger and more active you wish you could see and hear him or her 24/7.
Then one night while scrolling through countless news and gadget articles I came across one that caught my attention. It mentioned something about a couple cool ways you can use your Apple AirPods that most people don’t know about. Tips and tricks or what ever you would like to call it.
I received my Apple AirPods as a birthday gift in June 2018. I always loved gadgets and as soon as Apple Airpods came out my fiancé already knew that they were going to be my next birthday gift. When I connected them to my iPhone it was like love at first sound. Plus the option of having small wireless Bluetooth headphones to make calls while working made my job a million times easier.
To quickly explain myself, I work with an auto collision spray booth manufacturer and the only way I can describe it is that it’s always loud. Being able to use the headphones and not fight with the wires while servicing the product in tight spaces made my life a lot easier.
So the article mentioned those typical tips like connecting to non-apple products and saving or checking the battery on the phone or Apple Watch, using Siri, music etc. But then I came across a tip on using the AirPods as a hearing aid. 💡LIGHT BULB!!!
In IOS 12 Apple added a new feature they call Live Listen which transforms your AirPods into a set of hearing aids. As long as you’re within 30 to 50 feet of you phone you can use the Live Listen feature. Obviously obstructions such as walls limit the range you can listen at.
Basically you can even use it to spy on your friends if you want to know if they talk bad about you when you leave the room.
( But lets not start any friendship wars here.)
My idea was to test this feature and see if I can hear our baby better then with the stethoscope. BINGO it works. Best part about this method is you can control the volume if there are too many distractions around you. The idea is for you to use your iPhones microphone which amplifies the sound in your AirPods. It works best when you remove your phone from the case because it allows you to put the microphone directly onto the belly. The contact with the skin blocks out most of the noise around and mostly sounds from inside the belly transfer through to your Airpods.
One of my main concerns was obviously cell phone radiation so to limit it I turn on Airplane mode and turn Off the WiFi connection leaving only the Bluetooth On. If you really want to go deep into it you can even turn off your cellular option manually as well. But Airplane On basically does the same thing.
So let’s brake away from story telling and help you with turning on and using this feature.
To turn on your Live Listen option simply follow these steps.
On your iPhone go to Settings -> Control Center -> Customize Controls then scroll down and tap on the green + symbol to the left side of Hearing option. Then simply return to your Home Screen.
In order to use this feature just put in your AirPods, open the Control Center on your iPhone then tap on the ear looking icon to open Live Listen.
In case you’re not familiar with opening your control center here are some quick tips.
Both steps are to be done after you logged into your phone unless you changed your phone settings for Control center during initial phone startup.
#1. On your older models with Home Button you can simply swipe your finger from the bottom of your screen to the top. Your Control Center pops up.
#2. Now on your newer iPhone X models you need to swipe your finger from top right corner downward.
To activate the feature tap on the Live Listen Off sign. It will switch to on and you are ready to go.
Put your iPhones bottom microphone on the belly and listen away.
Remember you can turn up and down the volume to your liking.
When you are ready to turn it off, press once in that same area which shows Live Listen On and it will switch to Live Listen Off.
Hope you enjoyed this new feature and this super looooong instructional story.
Have Fun and thank you for reading.
S.J.Sz.
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