Walking with Dancers: Sonogram Time!

On Thursday we got to have our sonogram!

This pregnancy has been going so much faster than the last. With J, I thought I would die of old age before our sonogram date finally arrived. I could hardly stand myself for those first 17 weeks or so.

This time well, they say with a toddler on your hands you don't have time to sit around and think. This of course is true. But I also have the special circumstances of both our impending move to another state and a husband who is finishing a PhD. (After watching and supporting him as he goes through this, I don't recommend anyone getting of one of those darn things!)

So yeah, I don't have any of the free time I had last time to spend waiting around!

That would explain why it felt like a blink before we could find out this baby's gender.

That is, until we got to the waiting room before our sonogram.

All of a sudden I got really unreasonably nervous. I went through my mind as best as I could, and couldn't come up with an explanation for the anxiety. Well, other than since having a c-section all pregnancy appointments get my stress levels up.

And we had to wait in the waiting room for about a half hour after our appointment time (and we were there about 15 mins early.) I started to get all sweaty (nerves plus the fact that it was like 80 degrees in there) and panicky and just plain weird. And I didn't even really know why!

So... I feel like that 45 mins in the waiting room kinda evened out the sonogram-wait-time-sensations for the two pregnancies.

The sonogram tech looked RIGHT off the bat for Baby #2's gender.

And this is what we found out:

We sent this to our families and friends to let them know.

(Actually we sent a version with more video involved, but I'm a little paranoid about putting our kids' names on my blog, so I had to cut parts of the video where we say it and use photos instead. Sorry it's not quite as awesome as the original.)

I was so sure we were having a boy!

I made the sonogram tech check again, and asked her how sure she was.

She said she was 98% sure Baby #2 is a girl.

(If you know me, you know I was sure we were having a boy last time too! I'm always wrong! And Blake's been right both times!)

Baby #2 is a wiggler. She was moving like crazy. The tech kept talking about it because she was having a hard time getting all the different measurements she needs, since 2 would not stay still long enough to capture them.

It was kinda weirding me out because, as I mentioned before in other posts, I'm not feeling this baby as much as I felt J move. I just couldn't understand how I wasn't feeling all those movements we were watching on the screen.

Once we went upstairs to talk to the midwife I learned that the placenta is right in the middle of my belly, on the front side, so it's blocking a lot of the sensations from me.

It all made so much sense!

Because... I had been feeling this baby a lot when it was tiny flutters. (Which I can only assume was because most of those moves were below the placenta.) But now that she is bigger (and higher) and moving stronger I'm feeling fewer movements! And I knew she moved a lot for the midwife the 1st time we got the heartbeat, so I just couldn't piece it together: How could she be so "feisty" as the midwife called her, and yet I feel so little?

So I felt like a huge mystery was solved!

Plus I was happy to hear the placenta was up higher like that, because before getting pregnant the midwives made me pretty nervous about "bad things" happening (no explanation given, but they seemed very intense about it) if the placenta were to attach to my c-section scar. So happy news that it's not down there!

While I was upstairs with the midwife I did end up getting told about pelvis shapes (again) and how no one knows what shape your pelvis is, way up high where they can't feel, so they just don't know if that will come into play during labor and delivery.

I found this very annoying and unnecessary to hear.

This same midwife had already assessed my pelvis during my first prenatal visit for this pregnancy and said it was adequately shaped. (Which, honestly, I found traumatic enough to have done---to be kinda picked apart like that, only because I've had a c-section. They don't do that to 1st time mommas. I mean I understand why they do it, but it feels insulting.) So she had already discussed with me all this info, which I had a hard time processing as I face getting another baby out of my body. But then she had to bring it up again, without me asking anything about it. You would think she would know that I am pretty well aware at this point of all the things that could go wrong, and see no need to bring it up for my sanity's sake. But that didn't seem to be the case. She had to tell me that perhaps J's tilted head was due to my pelvis' shape way up high.

Well I'm not a doctor so don't go and correct me if you know better than this, but I think that's not what made her head tilt. I just think she had her head titled. I don't see how she could have made it, through my cervix, within an inch or two of making it out, with the top of my pelvis being messed up.

And I am sticking to that belief until the day I die even if this baby (and any other babies) comes out of my old incision.

So I left my appointment irritated and crabby.

Why must I be talked to this way?

Why can't I just go about my happy pregnant business without having to feel like someone is always telling me there is something wrong with me?

Why do I have to feel hovered over, like I just can't quite be trusted, like I just need tiny reminders that I should be prepared for the worst?

I've been there.

I know.

I'd like your support now.

Anyway,

yeah.

Sometimes it's hard for me to go to the appointments now.

But back to the fun part,

the sonogram.

Flash back to that.

That part I enjoyed.

Quite a bit.

I love sonograms.

I tell you what,

when I see my baby---

BOND.

I fall in love.

So as I said, I was shocked to hear

"It's a girl!"

After my initial "How did I get that wrong?" thought

(which took a minute or two to process)

I came to, hearing the tech assess this little girl's heart:

"She has a beautiful heart."

And right then I was overcome with an emotion that doesn't have words, but the closest words to it are:

"Of course she is a girl. Of course. She is my wonderful, amazing, gorgeous daughter, who I love with all of my being. I am so happy she is here. I am so happy it is her. It couldn't have been anyone else but her.

A girl!

My girl.

My girl with a beautiful heart!"

(And then I thought of a name,

which I thought about the rest of the session as I saw her wiggly little body.

But Blake and I still need to totally agree on one, so I can't say.)

And then I got teary eyed.

So here she is.

I think she is lovely.

I don't know if anyone else is this way, but I think I can tell who babies look like from these skeleton photos. I don't have a large sample size to prove it.

But I knew J looked like her dad after seeing her skeleton. (And does she ever!)

I think this baby has a pretty good chance of looking a lot like me, based on her skeleton.

If you'd like to play along with my game,

Here is J's sonogram: