18 Week Sonogram - It's a ...! : Pregnancy 18 weeks

We finally got to the 18 week sonogram. I can’t believe it. It feels like it’s been a long time in a lot of ways – as we’ve waited and guessed and wondered. But maybe not so long since we just told our parents a couple of months ago. So many people have asked me if I “know.” You know – women’s intuition, a mother knows, those feelings you get… And honing in on my 6th sense I have to say – nope. Nada. Not a clue. Some earth mother type I make!

I guess if pushed I think it MIGHT be a girl, but my first point of logic on this is flawed – it’s because I think I might a little bit want it to be a girl. Really, it’s a first baby and I’m just happy to be pregnant! And one day down the road I think I might like one of each. But if I’m not going to get variety in my children, I know that I don’t want two boys! So I think I sort of want this to be a girl… My second point of logic on why I think it might be a girl is much more “spot on.” We have a boy’s name, but don’t have anything for a girl. Logic therefore dictates a girl.

What’s funny is how many other people have told me what they definitely think it is. The woman at my salon thinks a boy – her logic: my face hasn’t changed enough for a girl (the “a girl steals your beauty” theory). Another friend has said absolutely a boy and she’s always been right with her guesses for friends and family. My husband’s friends all seem to be saying a boy (one will point to my bump and refer to the baby as his nephew), but I think this is just their wishful thinking.

So how did the sono go?

We got there in the morning and waited our turn. The tech told me she would do the tests she needed and then turn the screen and show me everything. I agreed – big mistake. She never really turned the screen all the way! She was busy looking for parts (DOING HER JOB) and I mostly sat with my head a weird angle trying to catch a glimpse of… my daughter! Yes, it’s a girl! I nearly cried when they told me – though I think I would have reacted exactly the same way for a boy. It was just so exciting – so much more this real person living inside me. I’m not showing a ton yet (a little now – but I’m at a point where most God fearing people would be scared to ask if I was expecting for fear that I’ve just gained weight). I’ve started to feel HER moving around a little bit on occasion, but it’s all so surreal still. I’m never exactly sure about the feeling. I know the books describe the early feeling as like popcorn popping. That was so nondescript to me! What does that mean? Then one day I noticed a little feeling in my belly. I started to think – huh, yeah, OK, I might actually describe that as feeling like popcorn popping now that you mention it… I also noticed the butterflies feeling – but again was surprised. I thought it meant it would feel like butterflies wings or something – instead it feels like that nausea in the pit of your stomach when you’re nervous. Great! Sadly I can’t get more descriptive. I think it feels like someone gently tapping on my abdominal muscle – but from the inside. Hmm – aren’t I helpful?

Anyway, all these pictures – that mostly “DAD” got to see rather than me! He loved seeing her jump around (I was jealous). At one point she was kicking away and My husband looked at me and said – how can you not feel that? Ha – I guess it looks bigger on screen! And now we know she’s a her!

And the reactions – our families were excited. Our friends with daughters were clearly ready to welcome us into the club (esp. the dads to My husband). But a few of his friends replied – are they really sure? Can they check again? Boys! I do have one colleague who adamantly does NOT want to know the gender. I think this is so funny, as we’re not particularly close. I mean, it’s not his kid or his family member or even a close friend – why care? I wasn’t surprised that he had a definite opinion about me finding out the gender (doesn’t everyone?), but why did he care if he found out when I knew? Very odd…

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.”

The heartbeat: Pregnancy – week 6

Watching your baby’s heartbeat as a tiny fast paced little flicker on a sonogram is amazingly exciting. But you should know that in order to this you will have to be violated by the robot from Short Circuit. Am I showing my age that my husband kept referring to the “stick” for the vaginal sonogram as Johnny 5? Yes, the Johnny 5 is alive / robot porn comments are an exciting moment in any marriage, I’m sure… But must we do this while I’m hormonal? It probably doesn’t help that the thing actually “wears” a condom for this procedure. (Yes, yes for those of you who are not 30 something year old grade school students, I know that this totally makes sense and is the only sanitary way to do it as the same machine will be used for everyone coming in for tests. But, dude, it’s wearing a condom! Given its size, it also begs the question of whether there are “special” condoms for Johnny 5 – and yes, I do see the irony of junior high humor with bad 80’s references…).

So leaving aside my adolescent thoughts on the machine (but then again, I got pretty intimate with it and feel like maybe it’s OK for me to have a nickname for it… ok, ok, I’m done), the image on the screen is pretty cool! There on screen is this tiny flashing little light which is your baby’s heart already racing (and wouldn’t yours be racing with that thing coming at you? OK, yes, I know!). After seeing that, the doctor told me that we could start to be “cautiously optimistic” that things were going to work this time. We’d never gotten this far before and it was exciting! We got to take home the first blurry smudged pictures of our baby. And I could let myself buy baby books!

Ah yes, the baby books… After 2 strikes, I didn’t want to go buy any right away just in case. Or maybe I should rephrase – I desperately WANTED to go buy some, but wouldn’t let myself. Of course, after 16 years of Catholic school (4 years with the Jesuits), I’d figured out my way around any rule and had become a maternity website ADDICT. I spent all my free time at work (and much not exactly free time…) looking up pregnancy websites. I’ve looked at every single detail of the first 6 weeks of pregnancy – what is happening, what to expect, what’s normal, what are good signs. Of course, I promptly forget last week, the second I’m onto the new week. Who knows what development happens in week 5 – this is week 6! Week 5 is totally old hat – been there, done that. My baby is so much more mature than that!