I had my follow-up ultrasound scan on Monday. The EIF (echogenic intracardiac focus) was still visible, but the referral doctor that we saw assured us that this finding was nothing to be concerned about - especially given the stellar numbers that I had gotten for my first and second trimester screen. It's hard sometimes not to worry, especially because I'm a constant worrier, but since there's nothing that we can do at this point - just have to hope for the best!
The ultrasound tech was using a new instrument when we went in. Downside, I had to lay there for almost an hour while the tech played with her new toy, figuring out contrast, etc. Upside , we got some 3-D shots of our baby - most of them are strange looking because the baby wouldn't stop moving or hiding his face. I'm jealous of all those people who have pristine ultrasound pictures, our baby is just plain uncooperative when you try and take pictures... he's going to have to get used to the attention because I'm already snap-happy with my camera as it is! Okay, here are the pictures:
Here's our boy already showing off his biceps. You can see his arm flexed in the center of the picture, and it looks like he's resting his forehead on his fist. You can also make out a little pout on his face if you look close enough.
And here's a picture of his legs crossed, you can see the outline of one leg and one foot pretty clearly. There's also an arm reaching down and it looks like his hand is resting on his knee:
Put the two pictures together, and it our baby probably resembles Rodan's Thinking Man in the womb. Haha (again, we can see that the Munar humor gene skipped me somehow).
The baby was sitting breach during the ultrasound, which I could have told everyone that before they even looked for the baby. I get some really strong kicks regularly through the day about 4 inches below my belly button. The tech was trying to get the baby to move to a more favorable position by jiggling my tummy with the wand, and instead of moving, the baby would just kick me in retaliation. Eric likes this trick, and has now taken to shaking my tummy and then quickly putting his hand on my tummy to see if he can get rewarded with a kick. Our baby's definitely inherited soccer genes from his dad.I think this will probably be the last of the ultrasounds that I will have pictures to post from. The rest of the posts will probably be related to boring stuff like getting the nursery ready and of my growing tummy - until our baby makes his grand appearance.Until next time, take care!
Today was the 20-week ultrasound, the big anatomy scan... and the big news that everyone has been waiting for: it's a BOY! :-) Our little boy was shy about showing his face, but definitely not shy in letting us know that we are definitely carrying a male!
Here are some of the ultrasound pics, not the best quality since ultrasound tech was having a hard time trying to catch pictures in between the baby moving his hands to hide his face and stretching out to grab his toes.
The first one is a profile shot, top of the head to the left, the nose and chin juts out a little, and you can see a tiny clenched fist floating in the middle:
The second scan shows the baby's face straight on, though there isn't much too see... just the roundness of the top of the skull off to the right, the baby's chin and some shadows where the facial features are. You can also see the round spot near the top is another clenched fist:
For the most part, everything in the scan read normally. The baby weighs approximately 12 ounces, and according to Babycenter.com. measures the length of a banana. The doctor did point out a echogenic focus in the heart, which showed up as a tiny white spot in one of the scans. She referred to the spot as a "soft" marker which may indicate a potential for an chromosomal abnormality, but she stressed very strongly that it was likely nothing - especially in the absence of any other "hard" or "soft" markers, and also this marker looks to be the most frequently spotted - and usually non-indicative of any further issues. Since she's a conservative doctor, I am going in for another comprehensive ultrasound in 2 weeks at another facility, and I'll provide an update then.
Other baby news, we finally felt our first kicks yesterday. Supposedly women are able to feel their baby around 18 weeks, so I've been waiting and waiting and mistaking gas (haha) and stomach rumbling as a kick. Yesterday though, I was getting some strong, solid jabs from the baby in my lower abdomen that Eric could feel as well. I'm looking forward to being able to feel the baby more as the weeks go by.
We're starting now to plan out the nursery and other home improvement jobs that we'll need to do before the baby comes. Also looming on our "to do" list includes figuring out what to do about daycare... I'm definitely starting to feel time go by faster, though only panicking slightly - I promise!
There's not much to update on my front, I feel great aside from the occasionally bouts of heart burn. I'll leave you with a picture of my 5-month belly, taken this morning. I'm in full on maternity pants now, but am still in denial about wearing my "tent"-like maternity tops...
Take care everyone! I'll update again in a couple weeks after my follow-up ultrasound.
Kristine
