The 12 week sonogram: Pregnancy – week 12

So finally it was time for the 12 week sonogram! We’d been looking forward to this one. I mean, every sonogram is fun and exciting – you get the reassurance that all is going well, but you get the pictures and all that too! We had debated whether to have the 12 week as we weren’t too concerned with the testing to be done (we’d wanted this baby so long and had what felt like such a long road to this point, we didn’t care what the test said), but we eventually decided it would be good to know the results – and anyway, most important, we wanted the pictures!

We got to the offices and waited our turn. There were several other women waiting for sonograms and my husband couldn’t help but wonder quietly to me – where are all the other dads? He was just as excited for this as I was and didn’t want to miss it. (A friend later noted that maybe some of the other women were on their 2nd or 3rd children – but I still think you’d want to see. It’s exciting! OK, so ask me again if we have more.) Whether it was just because we were both there or because of the palpable electricity around us in our excitement, the technician immediately guessed that this was our first baby. She was wonderful – picking up on our excitement, letting us see everything and explaining. She actually projected the image onto a large screen so that we could see well also – and it was amazing! I can’t describe all the emotions, but will share that one of my favorite parts was that the baby did not want to wake up / be disturbed for this – my husband said it proved that this was definitely MY kid. He might have a point. At one point, the technician was pushing a little harder with the “wand” to try to get the baby to move for an image she needed – the baby moved his or her hand across his/her forehead. He looked and said – oh the baby is waving! I said, no, the baby is trying to wave away that wand and saying – don’t bother me!

Afterwards the technician printed out the standard images as well as the 3-D. It was SO COOL! If you’ve never seen 3-D sonogram images, you have to check them out! We sent them to our families and I think my Mom was really most blown away. She’d apparently never seen a sonogram, full stop (not even the “standard”). OK, so they didn’t have them when she was pregnant (yes, yes, I’m old, I know), but I still couldn’t believe she’d never seen anyone else’s or seen one in an ad or on tv (she must have?). She forwarded them along to all and my favorite response was from my cousin who said – “I never thought I’d see anything so beautiful on my blackberry.”