Love at First Sight

Let me just go out on a limb here and say I was so incredibly nervous/anxious/terrified/excited/worried/thrilled/sick to my stomach/ecstatic at the thought of our ultrasound. The week or so before, it was mainly the good. I couldn't wait. It was scheduled out two weeks from the day we had it scheduled and that seemed like an eternity. As if 9 months isn't long enough!

Then as they day approached, namely the day before, I started worrying. I had been sick all week with that rotten cold, which was a more complained about endeavor than the pregnancy symptoms that week. Then, I read a stupid, stupid, STUPID article by accident Thursday morning that said one of the first signs of miscarriage is not feeling pregnant. So what do you think I was feeling at that exact moment? I certainly wasn't feeling pregnant! Surely, I had lost this baby. Surely I wasn't fit to carry a baby. Surely this was all too perfect, all too surreal. There was no doubt in my logical mind that I was pregnant; four home-tests, as well as a urine and blood test at the doctor, a board certified nurse coming in to tell us, "You're most definitely pregnant!" and a doctor spending an hour going through medical history and birth stories of everyone I've ever known and then oh so wonderfully 'checking to see if my pelvis is large enough to give birth naturally'. I'm fairly certain all that doesn't happen from lack of proof of a baby growing. But my regular brain? The logic-free one? Yeah. There was no way I could be pregnant.

We got to the imaging department half an hour early, because, well that's just how I roll. And if you know me well, you will know that in any situation where quiet, still waiting is required, I prefer to do nothing. No reading, no talking, no anything. Just sitting and staring. People watching is allowed. The entire time I'm sitting there, while Rob reads a camera magazine and tries to grab my attention to take it off of what I'm certain he knows I'm thinking, I am praying to God for peace and protection of our unborn, and arguing with my logical brain that, of course something is wrong, of course we're not going to see a heart-beat and how in-the-heck am I going to be expected to just waltz right out of this place just having learned my baby is gone? I understand I'm crazy, people. Really, I do.

Side Note: I was told to drink one quart of water one hour before the appointment and DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PEE AFTER DOING SO. Okay, um, I have to pee like the dickens sans drinking any water. What kind of foul punishment is it to make a pregnant woman drink two bottles of water and not pee? I was in pain. If my bladder has ever caused me pain, that was the day.

So we finally get called back into this dark little room with a chair for my love, a bed for me and a sweet ultrasound tech (I don't actually know her title, so we'll just go with that) who was very soft spoken and told me she'd let me pee as quickly as she could. She was my new best friend. So I lay down, fold my jeans down a bit, and she squirts that weird feeling warm goo on my lower belly and the instant she touches that little magic wand to my belly we see our baby. Our baby! Oh the screen! (Not that the little tyke is all that big anyways, but dude was DWARFED by my GIGANTIC bladder! I know, I know, too much information but OH MY GOODNESS. My bladder was a BEAST!) We sat amazed as she showed us this video/picture of our baby, in my belly for twenty minutes. I tried my best to ignore to agonizing pain of having my already too full bladder pushed on over and over as she looked for various parts of me and measurements of baby.

She then zooms in on baby and we see this tiny little light bulb flashing; white, gray, white, gray, white, gray, white, gray. Our baby's heart. Beating! Strong and fast and perfectly normal! The screen was then cut in half; half ultrasound of our baby, the other half this weird, lined, chart looking thing which she told us was the motion of our baby's heart beating. All 151 beats per minute of it! We were amazed. We sat in utter bliss. I'm fairly certain I would trade never peeing again for being able to sit there for the next seven months and watch that adorable little heart beating on our little blob of baby.

When it was time to go (we avoided the, um, 'other place' of interest for first trimester ultrasounds because the tech was able to get the measurements she needed just from my belly) we walked out to a different world. We had our baby, alive and well, with his or her little arms and little legs and amazing little beating heart. Rob couldn't stop saying "that is the coolest thing I have ever seen in my LIFE" and "I have never seen anything so AMAZING" and "that was our BABY!" Needless to say, he doesn't cuddle me in bed anymore. He only cuddles his baby. Have I told you how much I love this man? I feel like the luckiest woman alive to not only get to be called his wife, but that my child, our child, will get to call him daddy.

The picture we got isn't great, but it is still amazing to stare at because it is a picture of our baby. Of that tiny little 3/4 of an inch baby, our large raspberry sized nugget, that we are already head over heels in love with. Here's to counting down to December, when if everything goes normal and well, we'll have our next ultrasound!

Statistics:
Crown to Rump Measurement- 3/4 inch
Weight- too little to measure :)
Due Date: Friday, May 14th, 2010 (doesn't that sound so futurish?)
Ultrasound from Friday October 2, 2009: 8 Weeks 0 Days