Another Photo

This here's either the other photo they gave us from the 2nd-trimester ultrasounds session, or the Babyface Nebula near Proxima Diaperon. You be the judge.



We're looking at much the same position as last time, but with a bit more of the body shown, and at a higher zoom overall. Also the wall of the uterus/placenta (I presume that's what that is) seems to be smooshed up much closer in the face, which is tilted to face a bit more straight-vertical as well.

A Personality Already

My mother has always said that babies are born with a personality. Based on what we've seen, I'd say that it might start a little earlier than that.

Friday was our 18 week ultrasound. This is the only one that most people have. (Our first was to figure out how far along we really were since I didn't really know the dates this pregnancy would be based on.) The idea for this one was to make sure the baby was growing well, had all the right parts, and no signs of anything wrong. We got a clean bill of health there. There was also the chance of finding out the baby's gender.

On the gender front, I didn't really want to know, but it wasn't a strong desire. I've heard enough stories about them telling people the wrong sex that I don't want to deal with them getting it wrong (picking a name on the fly, returning all the clothes, etc, telling everyone that "Frank" is really "Susie"). Finally, I like the idea of a surprise at the end of labor. That sounds like a whole lot of work and I'm pretty sure I'm getting a baby at the end but what kind is a complete mystery. None of these are very strongly held beliefs, so I was ready to consider finding out. Adam, on the other hand, was about as strongly interested in knowing as I was not (ie: mildly). His biggest concern was wanting to see everything in the ultrasound and not missing out because they were trying to hide the gender from us.

So, we went into Friday with the basic idea that we didn't want to know the baby's sex but would not be heart broken if we accidentally learned. It ended up that the little one didn't want us to know anything at all. It made the doctor's job hard by wiggling all over. There were flips and turns and limbs swinging everywhere. The one thing that DIDN'T change was that the legs were clamped tightly together the whole time. Even if we had been dying to know, this baby wasn't going to let anyone see its private parts!

This little one apparently has a strong personality. Flashbacks to stories of me trying to convince everyone that I was the boss since the age of two are starting to haunt me!

It's a . . .

. . . baby. Yes folks, it's a baby. We had our second-trimester ultrasound survey a couple days ago, which among other things is when they start offering to try to tell you the sex of the baby. After some complex thinking that may or may not be a topic for future posts, we decided not to find out (at least now). So, it's a baby! And more importantly, it's a healthy baby in all the ways that they can tell at this stage.

So here's the little future rugrat in his/her/its updated mug shot. This time facing to the top left, in profile. The dense (whiter) bit center-left is the lower part of the jaw and face, a divot for the eye-socket, and the bright arc from there around from 10-o'clock to 6-o'clock is presumably the skull. There's a C-shaped blur in the middle there that kind of suggests an ear, but for all I know could be some mid-brain structure given the depth of the imaged scan.

Things that we "saw" in the ultrasound:
. two arms with hands with fingers, substantially close to five fingers per hand
. two legs, with feet with toes, substantially close to five toes per foot
. a head with a face, and a brain inside (they assured us)
. a stomach, kidneys, and a liver. Christi thinks also a bladder, which was apparently hard to find.
. at least one femur, which was measured for length (a couple centimeters, if I caught it right)
. a spine and a buncha ribs, which were some of the coolest things as you (or at least I) could imagine the structure as the technician scanned deeper and shallower across them
. a working, pumping heart (straight-on 150 beats-per-minute) with multiple chambers
. an "aortic curve", I think, which is the major blood vessel leaving the top of the heart and curving down into the body cavity.

Yay parts! Apparently they all look healthy/nominal/good, which made us happy. In a growing tradition, we went for ice cream afterward.