Ultrasound Number 2!

We saw you! We saw you! We saw you! And you are a cutie – mommy and daddy can tell that already! Though you are not a morning person (wonder who you got that from?). :)

Let’s walk through the ultrasound experience, shall we? First off, we (meaning Missy – Jon stayed in bed, warm and comfy) had to get up early (since our appointment was early) and go to the bathroom and then drink LOTS of liquid and then NOT go to the bathroom until after the ultrasound. Yeah. Oooookay. Pregnant ladies are not comfortable not going to the bathroom for extended periods. And I had to lay on my back for most of the ultrasound, which is the most uncomfortable position for me while I've been pregnant -- not even considering laying flat with a full bladder. It wasn’t that bad (I’ve had to go to the bathroom worse in my life) but it wasn’t that fun either.

My doctor doesn’t do ultrasounds in her practice --- they send you to another ultrasound doc who is part of the same overall physician group but not in their practice – so we went to a different doctor’s office in Ypsilanti. And wow! This doc’s office was super-swanky. Hardwood floors, mood lighting, and soft music – I wanted to move in! And they had a warmer for the ultrasound gel (thank you thank you), so the goo they put on my tummy was warm and not shockingly cold like all the moms at work told me it was going to be.

At first we couldn’t really see anything, though the tech seemed to know what she was looking at. And then we saw the baby’s face (or profile to be more accurate)! Yay, you look like a person and not a blob, little bean! One less thing to worry about. You had your hand by your face but weren’t sucking your thumb though. You didn’t want to move, so we couldn’t see the front view of your face, but we have a couple good profile pics of your adorableness to show-off. After getting a peak at your head, the tech spent a good amount of time getting pictures of your heart – it was cool to see all the chambers beating. At first we were slightly concerned because the tech looked at the heart and then said, “I’m going to spend some time checking out this heart here.” I immediately thought something was wrong! The tech did indeed spend a lot of time checking it out, but then said the heartbeat was nice and strong and everything looked good. She could be lying, but I guess we’ll find out at the next doctor’s appointment. After the heart we looked at your abdomen and kidneys, and took a measurement of your waistline (cute tummy bean!).

Then came the words, “Do you want to know?” and it felt like time was standing still. She knew what gender our bean was, err . . . is I mean! We hesitated and she joked, “I assume you’ve talked about this before now.” Hehe. Jon said that we did want to know but we wanted her to . . . at which point she said, “Write it down.” Hmm, guess she’s heard our little song and dance before. She did think it was neat to open it up with our family there though. She said that during Christmas especially she gets lots of requests to write the gender down so people can open it as a Christmas present. We both kind of think that it must be a boy, simply because it seemed like the tech knew pretty quickly and seemed sure (of course we didn't even know she was really in that region, so what do we know, and I guess she sees baby private parts everyday and can probably tell them apart pretty efficiently) . People at work with girls have told me that their doctor knew right away and was sure as well, so who knows. We'll find out soon! (doggone, where's that envelope?!) She actually didn’t write it down right then, but continued to check out the baby’s legs (there are two) and arms (two of those as well) and spine (only one of those).

Throughout this whole thing our baby just laid there! Is this a sign of a lazy child? Or a compliant easy-going kid? Hmm. It frustrated mommy a little – I wanted to see you moving, my cutie! The tech wanted better pictures of the spine, which necessitated the baby changing position, which he/she was not doing on their own, so she had me roll on my side towards Jon.

That woke the baby up a little – it squirmed and kicked to get comfortable again, and then promptly went back to sleep! Moved enough to get a much better view of the spine though, which made the tech happy. And then she took a long look at something at the top of the spine, going “Hmm” and moving the ultrasound-thingy (technical term there) to view the “growth.” Which turned out to be the baby’s hand – he or she was lying with their hand tucked behind their back. Goof-a-loo! We have a picture of that too, which the tech labeled for the doctor so he wouldn’t think that we were having a hunchback. I rolled towards the tech to get a few more shots of the kidney, and then we were done! She wrote down the gender in the card that we had ready while we looked away, and then Jon whisked the card away from me (smart man). It is now in an undisclosed location (to Missy at least), not to be seen until we get together with our families. After this was all done I finally got to go to the bathroom (sweet relief!). That was nice.

It was so cool to see our baby and see it move - if only a little bit! I brought the pictures to work and keep looking over at them. We’re really having a baby – not a blob, but a real baby! With a nose and head and arms and legs that actually work! This ultrasound thing is cool. The pictures don’t look like what you see in the books though – I think they took pictures of babies who are farther along than we are. At first I was a little disappointed because the baby didn’t move as much as I thought it would, and the pictures didn’t look like the books, but that was dumb (kookie mommy). Now I can’t stop looking at our little baby’s face in the pictures. I think I’m in love . . . :)