Our ultrasound experience

I warn you: this is going to be long. I just want to babble on about the ultrasound... please feel free to skim.

I was so excited about calling, emailing, posting, and Facebooking yesterday that I couldn't even think about writing a blog post. Last night I couldn't sleep at all. I know most people stay up the night before something exciting, but I was just buzzing all night long. Mr. I fell asleep around 9:45 and I had to get out of bed. I had a bowl of cereal and read my baby books for about an hour, then went back to bed and laid awake for probably another half an hour.

I can't even describe what a weight I feel lifted from my shoulders after having the ultrasound and finding out that everything is okay with baby. And learning he was a boy suddenly made it feel so real - it's not just some abstraction called a baby anymore, it's my child... my son! Aaagh!

So here's how it went down yesterday. I picked Mr. I up from work and drove us to the health center. But I was so excited and such a spaz that we pulled up to the center almost a half an hour early. It was kind of weird to be going to the place where we had our ultrasound to confirm a miscarriage last winter... I remembered vividly that when we were last there, so heartbroken, there was a girl with a bump about my size now, and how I felt so strange and broken in the same room with her. So I quickly scanned around to see if there was anyone who might be there for bad news... but it was just me, a girl who looked 6 or 7 months along, and two older women getting mammograms.

We were called back pretty quickly (I guess being early was helpful after all). Going into it, my worry about the ultrasound was that the tech would not tell my anything about whether the baby looked healthy, and I would have to leave feeling just as scared as ever and wait for my doctor to call days later. So I had gotten tips from the girls on SAL, who told me to try asking questions to get her chatting, which I thought I might be too shy to do, but I just went for it. So when she said she was looking at my cervix, for example, I'd ask "is that to check the length?" and she said yes, and it looked good, etc.

But the tech turned out to be really nice and friendly and I didn't have to do that much prompting. She asked us if we had any baby names in mind, and we told her probably Fiona or Miles. She said, "Oh, I loove Fiona. That is SO cute! Oh, Fiona... so cute, I love it." At that point Mr. Ibis and I both started thinking she must know it was a girl, and that's why she was gushing over our girl name (we later told each other we were thinking the same thing at that moment). But she got to the crotch shot in short order, and of course since I have by now seen so many ultrasound pics I saw it right away - but she had to point it out to Mr. I. She didn't say it was a boy, she just pointed to the money shot and said "there it is!" He was like "That's it?! That's the... junk?" And she said, "Yep, that's his little package." I think we were both stunned for a moment, and then I laughed and said "I knew it!" and I almost started to cry. It just hit me... we're having a baby boy... WOW.

That was the moment for me when the baby really became my child. To my surprise, the thought suddenly popped into my head that it hardly even mattered to me anymore whether there was anything wrong with him or not... I loved him and that's all I cared about. I know some people feel like that from the beginning, but I had built a wall around my heart, and I was so afraid to love him, I don't think I really did - until suddenly he had an identity and he was mine.

It was funny, Mr. I had been pretty quiet up until that point, and then he just started to talk in a stream of consciousness, almost, about the name, and circumcision, and just whatever was going through his head upon learning he had a son. It was cute. I think it was just a release of nerves for him too.

Once Mr. Ibis started talking and I relaxed, I think the atmosphere in the room lightened. The tech went over all of the organs, showed us the arms, feet, legs (long legs!), the nose and lips (so cute), and a lot of good face shots and profiles. He was moving, but just kind of in a slow, relaxed way, not kicking a lot but just moving his arms and legs and body. She said that everything was looking good, all his organs looked good (yay!!). I was so happy to hear that. Oh, and I told her how at my last appointment his heart had slowed down - wondering if she saw that too. She said, "Yeah, they do that. Did your doctor tell you that?" and said "well, she said to just stay off my back if I can." She actually seemed a little bothered that my doctor hadn't told me it's normal for the baby's heart to slow a little now & then for no particular reason (and not because of lying on my back)... so that was good to know.

Then she told me to go empty my (very full) bladder and "jump around a little" so she could try to get some more pictures of his heart. She said everything else looked so perfect she wanted to at least try for some better heart pictures. She left the room while I went to pee and Mr. Ibis and I chatted for a few minutes, though I have no idea what the heck we were saying... I was a little worried at that point that there was something wrong with his heart and she was going to get a radiologist or something.

But she came back and looked again. Now that my bladder was empty he had his legs folded back over his head! Silly baby. Mr. I said, "he's doing yoga like his mommy," and the tech seemed very interested in my yoga routine and asked me all about it. Then she found his heart and said "wow - look at that." She sat back like a painter viewing a masterpiece (I know I sound ridiculous, but she really did make an exaggerated gesture like that). "That's a sonographer's dream right there. Beautiful." And just sat there admiring the view of his heart beating for a few long moments. She kept remarking on how perfect everything looked and told us, "I could do your sonogram all day!" As I got up from the table she thanked us (ha) and said, "I haven't seen a lot of good sonograms lately, so that was really nice." She said she was only supposed to give us four pictures, but she'd printed six good ones for us, and she gave us the DVD too. The DVD is 6 and a half minutes long, which of course we watched last night and I also emailed to my parents.

And then we just floated away on Cloud 9. Of course we called our parents right away and everyone was thrilled. My parents both said they'd thought it was a boy all along, as did I. My dad said he couldn't wipe the smile off his face. My mom was just laughing happily. Mr. I's mom was very excited. She actually called us a few hours later and said she'd already been out buying cute boy clothes for us, haha.

So the frontrunner name is still Miles. We briefly considered Milo, but most people we talked to didn't like it, so we're back to Miles. I thought for a minute Mr. I doesn't like it anymore, but he does. And his friend who visited us last June is lobbying hard for Miles, hehe. We'll see... I say we still have plenty of time to think about it. Although it will be fun to start calling him by name once we decide.