IT'S A BOY!!!

We had our BIG ultrasound today at the Fetal Diagnostic Institute of the Pacific at Waikele! I started to feel really anxious and nervous last night and those feelings didn't pass until I saw our baby on the ultrasound monitor this morning at 9:30AM. It had been 7 weeks since we last saw our baby at our 10-week ultrasound and we hadn't heard the heartbeat since 14 weeks. I still don't feel any movement, which would be a comforting sign that all is well in my belly. :) It still blows my mind to think there is a tiny life growing inside of me. It truly is a blessing and a miracle.

Baby's anatomy looked completely normal and was still measuring right on target for my end-of-October due date. We got to see baby's heart, heartbeat, stomach, kidneys, brain, spine, arms, hands, legs, feet and THIS:


That little protrusion at the center of the photo is a pee-pee!!! When the doctor found Baby T's pee-pee, he said, "Wow! There's no doubt that's a boy! Look, it's nearly half the length of the thigh bone. Very impressive. You must be so proud!" The doctor looked a bit nerdy, but turned out to have quite a sense of humor. :)

Baby moved around a lot during the ultrasound. He was also positioned right under my belly button, which made things difficult to see. Apparently, the belly button casts a dark shadow on the images. The ultrasound technician was the first one to start the ultrasound (the funny doctor came in later). The tech had to vigorously jiggle the wand around on my belly in an attempt to get Baby to move into a better position. It seemed like just when the tech got Baby into a more favorable position, he would move again! I could just imagine Baby saying, "Psych! Hahahaha!" Yes, I think he thought it was a game or something. Or he's turning out to be quite the rascal already. :P

It turns out that my health insurance covers 3D/4D ultrasounds! That was a pleasant surprise. The computer software takes the 2D images and then tries to guess/fill in the blanks to create a 3D image. It was pretty interesting! Unfortunately, we couldn't fully take advantage of the 3D because Baby was just moving around too much. The doctor couldn't get enough "good" info from the 2D images. He actually apologized to us a couple of times for making our baby look "scary" like "Skeletor".

The doctor told us that he feels 3D ultrasounds are more for entertainment purposes. He said that the 3D ultrasounds don't tell him anything more than what a 2D ultrasound tells him. I thought that was interesting coming from a doctor. In the end, I'm glad we have our 3D images, but I don't think I would have paid out-of-pocket for them.

Another pleasant surprise was that, in addition to getting prints of some of the ultrasound images, they also burned the images on a CD for us! So here are some 3D "scary Skeletor" images of Baby T. :P

He's smiling!

Another big smile!

Close-up of Baby's face (and hands?)