Friday, July 17, 2009

I think the baby has David's nose

On Tuesday morning, we had our first trimester screening test. My doctor's practice offers this test as an initial predictor of chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome and Trisomy 18. The test consists of an ultrasound, where the tech takes measurements of a fluid-filled space in the baby's neck, and a finger-prick blood test.

To be honest, David and I didn't really care about the diagnostic aspects of this test. Whatever the results, we knew that we would love and cherish this baby. The only reason why we decided to go through with this was so that we could get another chance to see the baby. :)

And wow! What a difference 6 weeks makes! Our first ultrasound, which was taken at 6 weeks, 3 days, basically showed a little blob with a flickering heartbeat -- thrilling, but still clearly very early in the pregnancy. This week's ultrasound was something else altogether...





The first sonogram is of the whole baby -- he's lying on his back, waving his arms and legs in the air. (Side note: nope, we don't know the gender of the baby yet, but it's much easier referring to him as a "him," rather than a "him or her" -- and I absolutely refuse to call our baby an "it"!) You can actually make out all five fingers on one of his hands -- during the ultrasound, it looked like he was waving at us!

The second sonogram is a zoomed in shot of his head and upper torso. He's got one of his hands near his head -- it looked like he was trying to get his hand into his mouth. :) And what's even more thrilling is that you can make out facial features in this one -- he's already got the beginnings of a cute little button nose!

It's incredible that the baby's features are already so developed -- he's got arms and legs, and fingers and toes, and a face, and everything! Even though he's still only the size of a plum! What an incredible sight!

As you can probably tell, I'm still riding the emotional high from seeing the baby this time. :) The icing on this cake is that we got a call from the nurse today, letting us know that all of the tests were within normal limits.

I know I've said this before, but I'm so thankful for each new milestone, every small step along the path of this whole pregnancy thing becoming more real to us. There really is a baby in there -- and he's the cutest little thing in the world! :)

1 comment:

Emily said...

Love it!