Ultrasound Story

Here's the big ultrasound story...I should have just written the whole thing out yesterday when I definitely remembered every little piece, but I was too busy calling every person I've ever talked to in my life, and then when that was finished I was just tuckered out.

Tommy hasn't been feeling well for the past few days, so he had gone home from work early to take a nap before our appointment. When I got home, I woke him up and then we left. We arrived to the imaging center about a half hour early, and I signed in. When I signed in, they told me they had not received the order for the ultrasound from our midwives' office. I think that's kind of fishy, since they had a registration sheet pre-filled for us, with info that would have been found on the order. However, I digress. Tom was pretty cranky to begin with (remember, he wasn't feeling good?), but I just made a quick phone call to our midwives' office and they faxed over a new order within minutes. I love them :)

Pretty soon, they took us back into an ultrasound room and gave me a gown to change into. Then I laid down on the table and they gooped me up. As soon as our little baby came up on the screen, I just gasped...she was so beautiful! Tom and I just sat there gazing at our little baby while the ultrasound tech took photos and measurements of the baby's head, spine, and heart. We were able to see all the ventricles of the heart beating away just as they should, and her heart rate was right up around 158 and very, very even. They even had this really neat setting on the ultrasound machine that allowed us to see blood flow from the cord to the baby. Every time I'd inhale, the cord would glow brighter red.

Then the tech made me roll onto my side, facing away from the monitor. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't see, and desperately wanted a mirror or something, but of course it's important for the tech to do her job and get the right measurements, so I just watched Tom watch the screen. That was really fun - he started making all these crazy faces and saying these little exclamations. Apparently they were seeing the baby's cute little profile. Thank goodness we got those photos to take home!

Then the tech had me roll back and forth a little, and even tilted the table back a bit, but couldn't get good measurements for a few things and also couldn't see the baby's sex because she was all curled up. She asked me to go to the bathroom and empty my bladder so maybe the baby could stretch out a bit more. Well, there was no way I was walking out of there without knowing the baby's sex, so I did what any good mommy would do - I got down on my hands and knees in the bathroom and did twenty pelvic rocks to help move my uterus up out of my pelvis. Yes, I felt disgusting, yes, I showered as soon as I got home, but it had to be done!

And it worked! The baby stretched out a bit for the tech and she was able to see everything! She said that she had been pretty sure before that the baby was a girl, but that the new shots definitely confirmed it. A little girl! I guess mom's intuition was right in this case! Tom said he's never been so happy to lose a bet in his life!

The tech finished up taking her measurements and left to go get the doctor to sign off on everything before letting me go. While she was getting her things together, Tom said he thought the baby had his nose. As soon as she handed me the ultrasound pictures with her lovely little profile, I burst into tears. Our little girl's nose does look just like his! I tried so hard to pull it together, but I've never felt so completely overwhelmed with emotions before in my life. It was like finding out we were pregnant times about a million. As we were walking out, I couldn't stop crying and just kept telling Tom over and over "I love her."

It's amazing to be pregnant at all after so much pain and tears, and even more amazing to know we're going to have a little girl in our family in just four short months!