Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Maternal Fetal Medicine: Boy? Girl? The Reveal!

September 28, 2015  What a day!!!!! To say I was excited is a HUGE understatement. There was of course some slight worrying, wondering if they would find any abnormalities or things to be concerned about during the anatomy scan ultrasound. But really, I had been counting down to this day so we could see our little baby again and how the growth is progressing. The biggest question we all have had could finally be answered .... is it a boy or a girl???

I checked in early and didn't wait long at all before being taken back for the usual statistics taken - weight, blood pressure, pulse. Last time I was at this clinic my pulse was racing, this time I was all normal and NOT caring about my weight. As of 19 weeks I had only gained 1 pound, even though that belly has grown a lot, so I've realized who cares about weight. This baby is way more important than a number!! We were taken to our ultrasound room and anxiously awaiting our tech to come in and show us the goods.

The first question was if we wanted to know if it was a boy or girl, and if we already did know. I was very eager to let her know that we would love to find out, if the baby cooperates and lets us see what's going on between those little legs. But are those legs little? For most of the ultrasound, which was quite lengthy and very detailed, the baby had stretched out legs. And those feet, oh my, I may have passed on my big feet ... and they were lodged into my cervix. It was like this little baby wanted to show off how long it is with these straight legs and feet. It was essentially in a standing up position, and the face was turned and nuzzled into my uterus. Looking pretty comfy!

All of the spinal cord was investigated thoroughly, with nothing alarming happening. Yay!! Next up we watched as she took a measurement of each leg segment and the arms. All 10 fingers and 10 toes are present and accounted for as well. Below you can see a little fist to the left, with part of the arm. And then part of leg off to the right. Nice and healthy just like we wanted to see!

But what did we all really want to see? You know .... and soon we (and our baby) were in a position to tell. Because I am not one to show naked baby photos, I am showing my child the same respect and not sharing the "between the legs" photos. Our ultrasound tech said, "Now we can tell what you're having... congratulations you two, you've having a little girl!" (Oh my, I just started crying again typing that!) Obviously I started crying at the news -- I would have cried boy or girl. It was such a relief to finally learn that I can stop saying IT and I can now obsessively say HER and SHE all the time! I'm having a little girl!!!!  Man Friend could see me trying to contain myself and not burst out into huge crying, so out came his jokes, as he is prone to do during appointments.

My little girl!!!!!
My little girl was nuzzled into me so much that it was hard to see her heart, which was the last thing to thoroughly inspect. I was asked to go walk down the hall, try to go to the bathroom and pace around to try to get her to move. On my walk I texted my mom "I know!!!!" Naturally I was refusing to answer her questions the way she wanted, and never cracked to tell her if it was a boy or girl. I was finally going to get to do something special to surprise her! After the potty run I did decide to try some half-assed jumping jacks... and that must have worked! Once back on the table our little girl did move, and we had a great view of her side profile and her heart. That little nose.... too darn cute!

The first thing she showed off to us again, just so her daddy would know for certain ... was that clearly she IS a girl. No doubt! He can toss aside thinking he's going to have a boy to work in the shop with him ... now we find coveralls for a little girl instead! Her heart looked great to the doctor and tech. We saw all four quadrants, the aorta and pulmonary artery. Another cool thing we saw was the umbilical cord leading from the baby to the placenta, and we actually watched the flowing of the blood to and from. Technology is so fascinating!! With everything looking great the doctor was happy to tell us she saw no markers for any genetic abnormalities. Because we have an ICSI baby (where they manually put a sperm into an egg) we will have one final appointment for another examination of the heart. But with that we were sent on our way .... on our way to Toys R Us!

We hadn't even left the building and I was making my first phone call .... to my adorable father-in-law. His excitement about his new grandchild is so fun! Since we waited quite a while before telling him he would be a grandpa again, we decided he would be the first to know she's a girl. He was so giddy and ended the call by telling me he is "tickled pink"! Awww.

At Toys R Us we grabbed the wand to register for things now that we know we are having a girl, and also wanted to find a way to make our announcement. The pink Jeep pretty much sealed the deal on that one. Getting in and out of that? Yeah, not pretty ... but it was worth it to get the photo! Along the way we also grabbed some things to give my mom as a way of breaking the news. I found an "It's A Girl!" Barbie and we knew buying it was non-negotiable. It HAD to be put in the cart! I may have gone a little overboard on the clearance clothes to get my first pink onesies. She also now has some Care Bear movies to go in her growing collection.  Oh man, at JC Penny they had baby clothes marked down to $1.99 .... how can I pass that up? I can't. Let's just say my little girl is ready for summer with her new mix and match collection!

My mom was at the City Council meeting, antsy for it to be over because she knew at the end she would get some important news. We met up with the gang at Applebee's and you could tell she wasn't going to let us NOT tell her right away. So I sent Man Friend out to the car to bring in her gift ... and here is how it went:



SEPTEMBER 2015
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Maternal Fetal Med.
GIRL!!!!!

1 comment:

  1. How exciting!!!! I'm so happy for your new little family!

    ReplyDelete

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