Saturday, March 30, 2013

Twenty - Halfway!


Um, my morning sickness came back temporarily...? On Sunday, baby boy had what appeared to be a growth spurt. For the past few days, I had been feeling a little more nauseous than I had in several weeks, and I felt this weird sensation in my stomach/uterus that I can only describe as a contraction, except it was growing instead of shrinking. Like a cramp from expansion. An ex-cramp-sion. Nope. Not a good joke. A friend from church told me she used to have random spurts of sickness surrounded by what seemed to be "the clear," and that it is because your baby is having a growth spurt. Your body surges in hormone production which makes you sick, and it's over (hopefully) within a few days. I'm chalking it up to that.

We've pretty much decided on a name. We're almost certain that we are going with this name, which I kind of hate because I always loathed the idea of naming a kid before you met him. So I'm saying, "we have a name that we like, but we're not setting anything in stone until we meet him. He may not be that name. I may have a few more kids, meet the last one and say there he is. That's him." Also, I don't want to feel like I'm obligated to use the name just because I've already told everyone, so we're telling only a few people (I'm not the type who's worried about stealers). We reserve the right to use a different name!

And the biggest milestone this week: We saw him again! I now live my life by counting the days until the next time I get to see him on an ultrasound or in person. We went to the ultrasound tech and she kind of shamed me for having emptied my bladder (what's a girl to do?! I honestly, honestly, honestly would have peed my pants. Y'all know what I'm saying). She pushed extra hard on my womb-area so she could get a better view of him since there was no fluid in there helping her out (again, I'm sorry). She measured all his parts.

I'm one of those people who can easily see the baby's general skeletal structure and outline in ultrasounds. Some people just can't see it, no matter how hard they look. For them, it's like looking at those abstract, kaleidoscope "art" pictures that supposedly reveal a larger image if you stare hard enough (remember, they were really popular in the '90's, because tacky stuff was cool?). Not for me. I can pretty much look at a blob of grey and black and say, "there's his head and spine and, oh, look! It's his tooth buds." Don't hate. I have a gift.

But while she was measuring all his parts and organs (and shaming me for peeing), I was totally struggling to see anything but a bunch of grey stuff. She was like, "there are his kidneys, and there's his stomach, etc." The only thing I could definitely see was his heart. She pointed out the four chambers, and it came into focus. It literally looked like a little oval divided into four quadrants, flapping away. I realized I can only see bone and really dense muscle tissue. Alas, I was not meant to be an ultrasound technician. It's probably for the best. I'm not known for my great bedside manner.

I should add here that Boybie, as he is fondly known, promptly fell asleep the second I walked into the doctor's office. He kicked and kicked the whole car ride over, but as soon as we were there, he would have none of it and he peaced out. He rolled over once, to change positions and fall into a deeper sleep, and he made a single hiccup-type movement, but refused to liven up, even with Ultrasound girl pushing firmly into his space. He woke up and started moving again about ten minutes after the appointment was over.

After she measured all his stuff, she just kind of...showed us around. She gave us a little tour of his body and printed pictures of the best parts. We saw his little pee-pee again, and his profile and hands and feet. A few things caught me by surprise. First of all, his belly is significantly bigger, and so is his head. He's putting on the chubs! Second, his little pee-pee was way harder to see because his legs and belly were so much chubbier, and they kind of hid it. Also, his ankles were crossed, and also, he was sound asleep, so he wasn't doing much moving. This was the best part, though.


You guys, this is my son's face. HE HAS A FACE. I had no idea. 

Jokes aside, seeing his little face changed everything. Before, he was a baby. Now he's my baby. Who's nose does he have? Who's chin? Who's eye shape? We can't really see any of that from this picture, but now I know that there was no mix-up. No in-utero switch. This is my kid. I can feel it when I look at this picture. 

On the car ride home, we laughed and laughed about how funny it was that he fell asleep and refused to wake up, especially with how active he had been at the last appointment. Our baby has a face and sleep patterns, just like all the other humans! We can't wait. We've devoted all our outer fridge space to him. 

2 comments:

  1. I always laugh when I see the term "pee-pee" because I'm thinking "Just use the name it was given." then I realize that people search for some WEIRD things and I probably wouldn't want to show up on a Google search for that, so I now understand, haha!
    It's so exciting! I'm dying to know the name, just because I LOVE names. Neither Jarrod nor I had any significance in Quinn's name, we just liked it and I'm glad because it really seems to fit her.

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    1. That's exactly why I say pee-pee or wee-wee instead of penis. I don't want gross people to find my blog by searching for that word. Haha, but I totally agree, it's a little silly.

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