Roll, baby, roll

Wow, that was exciting. Last Thursday, we went to the first of our integrated tests. As expected, they did an ultrasound, where they measured the baby in various configurations.

I’ve seen ultrasounds for my little brother, my niece, and for my friends U&C’s baby D. So I knew it could take a couple of seconds for the baby to come into the proper position for viewing. However, BAM! As soon as the technician put the ultrasound thingy to my belly, there he/she was, in perfect profile like they always show in the movies.

THEN, he/she rolled over and showed us his/her back. Then appeared to wave at us with the left hand. Obviously, these are completely involuntary, unconscious movements, but I have to say, this was the moment for me, where I was struck over the head with the reality of there being a real baby in there. The husband had this goofy/silly/dumbstruck look on his face like, “Did you see that?” I almost cried from the amazement. I definitely would have if we weren’t in there with a stranger.

Sizewise, the baby seems to be the right range. The technician said 6cm, but the fuzzy printout says 6.7cm, I think. The printouts suck to what we actually got to see when we were there… I wish I had asked her also what the uterus size was, because I was astounded that the baby could move so freely, with zero awareness on my part. It wasn’t squirming, just hanging out and rolling about freely.

I mean, I’ve known and felt pregnant for months now, but it’s really different seeing the baby in motion, while listening to the heartbeat. Now, there is a new awareness of this new being in there.

In funny news, I think my husband and I are having an ongoing disagreement on how much we want to push our kids. We had a really tense discussion the other day on what learning is, and yesterday, while we were watching How I Met Your Mother, we clearly came down on opposite sites of Lilly (wants her kindergardeners to have fun playing basketball) and Marshall’s (wants them to push to win) argument.

In pregnancy symptoms news, I will overshare and say that constipation sucks. And the nausea is definitely better than the peak I hit a couple of weeks ago, but it’s still ever-present. I have headaches and nausea. I had a 4-day streak (maybe it was longer) when I didn’t puke, but that got ruined two days ago. Boo.

I certainly don’t feel like my usual upbeat & happy self. In general, I feel like a stick-in-the-mud. I never feel up for doing anything and I’m grumpy when I hang out with people, and I always want to puke. 

But it’s still better than a couple of weeks ago! 🙂

Lots o' Pills

No, nothing pharmacological. I’ve been taking ginger pills since last Thursday, and vitamin b6 pills since about two days ago. Compared to my pre-pregnancy self, I still feel like utter crap, but compared to last week, I am much, much better.

We went to our regularly scheduled doctor visit on Wednesday and listened to the heartbeat for the first time. It’s pretty crazy. Even though I heard it perfectly when I accompanied my friend to her appointment, I failed to hear it right away for us. 🙂 My husband did hear it fine though.

We told two more of our friends on Sunday at a small dinner gathering to celebrate the husband’s birthday. I also told another friend on Monday when I met with her for lunch. 

Tomorrow is the first of our integrated testing. This one will be some sort of ultrasound, where they measure the width of something behind the neck and make various other measurements to ensure that everything is going along ok. We won’t be told about their conclusions re: neck measurement or anything unless it is so severely out of wack that it’ll be obvious something is wrong. If things are not immediately noticeably wrong, they will wait until the week 16 tests to interpret tomorrow’s results, to ensure a much higher accuracy.

I’m nervous. I just hope the fetus is the expected size and everything.