Friday, June 3, 2011

Ultrasound experience

I wanted to post about the experience my family had when we had our recent ultrasound. It started out like this:
Xander and I got to the hospital (where my doctor's office is) and I called David to see how close he was. I got his voicemail. Xander and I went on in and after I signed in and did some paperwork I texted David to see where he was. I got an almost immediate call from him saying his alarm for the appt. didn't go off, he had been pulled into a meeting and lost track of time, but that he was on his way there. As I was talking to him on the phone the unltrasound technician, Joyce, called me back to the room. I hung up with David, walked to the door and told her that my husband was on his way and asked if we could wait a few minutes. She said she could maybe wait about 5 minutes, but really couldn't wait longer than that. I understood. She's on a schedule. But I really didn't want my husband to miss this experience!

I was planning on David being there to hold Xander so I didn't know what I'd do with him while laying on the table. Joyce said he could sit on a bench (halfway across the room) and I told her I didn't think he'd go for being that far from me in a dark room. I ended up scooting over as far to the edge of the table as possible and he sat beside me while I held on to him. She waited about 5 minutes and then said, "I'm sorry but we're going to have to start now." I said I understood even though my heart was so sad that David wasn't there yet. She put the gel on my belly, got her instrument thingy (don't you like how technical I am?) and started the scan. Xander was fascinated. He loved watching the screen and was fascinated with all the buttons she was pushing on the machine. She told me that the cerebrum was forming correctly and about that time there was a knock on the door. It was my nurse bringing David in. I was so relieved! He walked over and took his place beside me, got Xander (who said, "It's Daddy! Hi Daddy!" when he walked in the door) and Joyce continued. She told us the liver looked good, the heart was good, and everything seemed great!

At one point Xander said, "It's a triangle!" He was right. The shape of the ultrasound looks like a cone, very triangular in shape. :) He also said, "It's a baby. The baby's in the water." This absolutely fascinated me. I've never talked to him about the baby being in water. The ultrasound is black and white so it's not like it really looks like water. However, there is definitely a "swimmy" feel to the video and you can certainly tell it's a baby.

She asked if we wanted to know the sex, we did, so she said, "I better do this before this baby moves on me." Joyce actually had to jab my belly a few times to get her to move around. She told us to look at the screen, showed us her parts and said, "It's a girl!" I had my doubts - it wasn't nearly as obvious as it was with Xander, but I trust her. David had a huge grin on his face, I started to tear up and Xander just kept staring at the screen.

Once we were in Dr. Ward's office (my ob whom Xander calls "Dr. Word" - ha!) he told us that the baby is breech right now, so they weren't able to get a good scan of the baby's spine. They have no cause for concern, especially since her head looked normal, but they like to have actual photos of the spine, so we'll have another ultrasound at the next visit.  I'm excited because this should've been my last ultrasound and I just love seeing the baby move around! It's a blessing to have another ulstrasound and to get to see my sweet baby girl one more time before I meet her in person!

1 comment:

Kristen said...

I'm SO glad David made it in time! What a special time for all of you as it was for us too! Yay for baby girls!