Anatomy Scan!

I felt like my body was buzzing all night last night and then this morning as I went through the motions at work. I only had to work for two hours before picking Cory up for the anatomy scan, but it was a long two hours.

I drank all my water on the way to get Cory, and then we still had some time to kill before we had to be at the appointment, so we sat at an outdoor table at Starbucks for 20 minutes, chatting about work mostly, but I was still buzzing.

Then it was on to the hospital. We got checked in, and a sonographer came to pick us up. I was a little worried because a coworker had told me that some sonographers there are not very helpful, they kind of rush through and don't give you many photos at the end and unfeelingly blurt out the sex of the baby. The sonographer who ushered us back into the room made me nervous for the first second, but then I realized he was pretty awesome. He had 25 years of experience, and six kids himself (foster kids, adopted kids, natural and IVF), and he was super nice. We spent a lot of the time chatting and joking.

He started with the heart, and moved up to the head, and all the while I was thinking "move down! Move down!" Apparently he did, even though I couldn't tell what angle he was coming from and what we were looking at, but he said "I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but I'm going to come back to it and see if I'm right."

We watched, absolutely fascinated, as every little body part came into focus. It was a squirmy little thing, starting off lying on its back and then two minutes later flipping onto its belly, and then going upside-down for awhile. I had to change positions a few times and he had to push on my belly with the transducer to get it to move away from the uterine wall so he could see its little spine. At times it looked like a little monster or ghost 'cause we could see the skull and all the bones.

The sonographer did a good job explaining most everything we were looking at. My very first question as I was lying down on the table was "if there's a problem, how soon will we hear?" and he said if it was bad we'd probably hear today. (My phone didn't ring, so I'm feeling pretty good.)

When he told us it was a girl, Cory and I just looked at each other and grinned, and I cried. We both wanted a girl and it was so nice to put a sex and a name to what's going on in my belly.

The last bit of the ultrasound was slightly spoiled by the fact that my bladder was starting to get uncomfortably full, especially when I had to change positions or the transducer went down towards my pelvis; and it was also pretty cold in the exam room. With my belly exposed and covered in gel, I was all tense trying not to shiver too much. He also measured several fibroids - he said that they didn't look like they were in an area to be concerned about, but he measured them so that they could see if they grow. He tried the 3D view for a few minutes but nothing was jaw-dropping; she was wiggly and had all of her limbs up by her face so we caught glimpses of her but nothing amazing. She's measuring about four days behind, it looks like - he estimated her due date is 6/24 rather than 6/20, and her length (10") and weight (10 oz) are slightly below average, but that's not that big of a deal.

After 45 minutes, we were done and I got to PEE. (YAY.) The sonographer handed Cory a dozen photos, and sent us on our way.

We kind of floated downtown to have lunch, and talked about middle names. We ran the gamut from serious to corny (including a list of hipster names like Fixie and Beard and IPA), and have a front-runner but we're going to let it percolate for awhile. We also spent a great deal of time just staring at each other with giddy smiles. I had to keep saying it out loud - "we're having a girl!" It kinda felt like when I first found out I was pregnant and had to say that out loud too.

Then we went to the store and got some cookies with pink sprinkles and brought them back to work with us so that we could celebrate with our coworkers. It was cute to see them come down to the kitchen near my desk and squeal when they saw the cookies.

And now we're home, slowly coming off of the high of today. I can feel myself bonding more, now that I know what she is and can put a face and a name to what's going on in there.

Ivy Granholm, ladies and gents!