go ahead , res him so he can die painfully again . <| sep |> I ' ve had a couple this pregnancy . When I got them they strapped two bands around my belly , one to monitor the baby ' s heart rate and the other . I guess I ' m not sure , maybe my heart rate ? Anyways , like someone else said , it produced a long sheet of paper . From that my midwife showed me they looked at the baby ' s heart rate and beattobeat variability and a few other things . They could also see when I got contractions and how long they lasted . I didn ' t get a little clicker , and I didn ' t feel every contraction the monitor sensed . It was cool to see how the tightenings I felt were measured and what really counted as a contraction . All of these were painless tightenings , so I think they were Braxton Hicks , but the nurse and midwives kept calling them contractions . I was 34 weeks at the time .