Wednesday marked the official halfway point of my pregnancy. At 20 weeks, I'm happy to say I'm feeling good (no more upset stomach), have more energy (though I still take my daily nap, it's only about 45 minutes long instead of 3 hours), and have finally started gaining some weight (due mostly to my insatiable appetite and Brandon's willingness to get me McDonald's after 10pm). Although I think I've been feeling a little kick here and there since about 14 weeks, the baby really started going at it last week and the kicks are now strong enough to be felt outside by both Brandon and Henry.
On Wednesday, we got to go see the baby during the ultrasound. Brandon got to go, thanks to two of our awesome neighbors who took care of getting Henry to school and entertaining June.
Here's a shot of its face. I think it's going to be an alien.
Or maybe an angry cursed pirate.
Well, this is cuter. We can say with some certainty that at least one hand has all five fingers as this little booger kept its hands up next to its face for most of the ultrasound. Here baby Gus is waving to us or practicing for Beatles Rock Band.
More hands to the face and a look at a nice round belly.
I think Gus may be sucking his thumb in this one.
I said "he," mostly because I'm tired of saying "it." But I also could have said "she." For the third time, we didn't find out if it's a boy or a girl. We figure we've already got enough boy and girl clothes for 100 kids and it doesn't really matter for room sharing purposes because Henry would probably have a nervous breakdown if he didn't get to share a room with June. And even if we had wanted to know, that baby was curled up tight and probably wasn't going to let us have a peek.
Having a 4 year old during this pregnancy has been a ton of fun. Henry in a really good place right now (we're getting along and the fighting and most of the whining has tapered off). And he is very good about letting me have my time to rest when I need it and has taken over most of the childcare for June. Plus he asks the best questions about babies. We showed him the pictures from the ultrasound and he wanted to know everything.
"Why did they only take pictures of the baby's bones?"
"Did they take the baby out to take its picture?"
"If they took it out, why didn't you get to bring it home?"
"How did they get a camera through your skin?"
Why is the baby only black and white?"
"Why didn't they take pictures of it's legs?"
The doctor's office also sent home a video of the ultrasound, which I think Henry has watched close to 20 times. Last night at 10pm, he woke up and had to ask me a very important question:
"When you eat food, does it go into your belly and hit the baby on the head?"
Apparently, he was very concerned for the baby's welfare and the fact that it would get an extreme close-up of any Long John Silver's I might be inhaling late at night. (Best. Food. Ever.) We had a late night anatomy lesson and he seemed to be satisfied that I wasn't going to hurt the baby with my poor late-night food choice (well, at least not physically harm it).
If you're at all interested in seeing the video of the ultrasound, here is all 6 minutes that we got on tape. And here's the play-by-play companion:
:00- The color is the blood flow to the baby's organs.
:10- Face and hand.
:25- That little tremor is the ultrasound technician shaking my belly trying to get the baby to move its hand. It gets more pronounced as the video goes on as she literally shook my belly over and over trying to get the baby to roll or change position. It was kind of embarrassing.
:40- Lips and nose are in place.
:50- Good spine shot.
1:15- We're starting to head downstairs. See if you can spot anything.
1:47- 8.0 magnitude earthquake!
2:15- The baby is laying still and you can see its little heart going.
2:55- Either the baby just yawned or screamed out a demon's curse on the woman skaing it around.
3:40- The start of some good profile shots.
5:15- From the chart, you can see that the baby is breech. I also looked up what all the measurements meant, and though the baby is measuring totally normal, it has a small head and long legs. What? Maybe this is the wrong baby!
Feel free to examine closely and make your predictions on to whether we're having a Kenny or a Dolly. Winner gets to babysit. All 3.
