Little Fetus, Inside and Out

I should have posted a bajillion times this week, but I’ve been trying to jam about 6 days of work into 3.5 days of work. I think I’ll just start with the most recent. We had THE appointment today. I’m rotating through the other doctors in the practice because I might have any one of the three of them for the delivery. I must say today’s doctor was quite interesting. He argued with me about my bagel as a means of nausea prevention strategy until he learned that said bagel was topped with cream cheese. I love that the cream cheese made it okay.

I also asked him a few questions about his birthing philosophy. He got rather defensive when I asked him what the c-section rate was for the practice. He also tried to tell me that no doctor ever performs an unnecessary c-section because they are all kinds of more work—oh, except for this one guy he knew—he hated that guy. Also, that the increase in c-sections in the last few years is just because babies are bigger than they used to be but pelvises aren’t bigger and yeah. I guess what worried me most was that after being defensive and then apologizing for being defensive for about 40 minutes he tried to do the exam again. He forgot that he had already done it and didn’t believe me until I told him what the heart rate was and it was the same number he had written in the chart. I think I caught him on an off day.

After this lively discussion, we proceeded onto our ultrasound appointment for which I was now 15 minutes late. A nurse told me to go in the room and disrobe. She then came back 5 minutes later and told me that I had to put my clothes back on because it was somebody else’s turn first. That made me really, really happy.

The magical fun part of the visit was of course when we finally got to get the ultrasound for real. It was much different from the first ultrasound I got at 8 weeks. At 8 weeks the lady took a bunch of measurements real quick, showed us the little baby outline with the cute little beating heart for about two minutes and it was over. This time there were minutes spent on each little anatomical feature. We looked at the heart, the brain, the legs, feet, hands, face. Fetus has at least 10 fingers and 10 toes and an upper lip and I think my nose.

And now you’re all wondering about the sex. You pervs. It’s all you think about. People ask me when I’m due and then if we know. At this moment, there is one person who knows—the technician who did the ultrasound. In typical Emo fashion, we decided to further procrastinate on making a decision. Two strangers we’ve spoken to on the street think we should wait. I think I’m leaning that direction right now. We had the technician write it down on a piece of paper, which is now in a sealed envelope. Kenny has hidden that envelope and we’re just going to wait and see how we feel. I leave you with pictures of Fetus (or was it Embryo then?) at 8 weeks and the picture from today at 19.