ULTRASOUND-That's How I Spell RELIEF.

So today I had my final Ultrasound of the pregnancy. I think every pregnant woman agrees that the Ultrasound is the most reassuring part of being pregnant, especially with the first baby. So much is going on with your body there's just no way to tell what's normal and what's not.

I'm 25 weeks and a few days pregnant today, but from week 22-25, I was very uncomfortable. I had a lot of weird pressure in my lower abdomen, to the point of being almost painful. Of course when you google these symptoms, you get the scariest possibilities, along with the possibility that your baby is simply growing. Today we learned the reason for the strange feelings over the past few weeks. Here's what happened...

First of all, it's about a thousand degrees out today. I've been struggling with dehydration a lot lately, so we decided we'd drive the few blocks up to my doctor today instead of walking. I don't know how much that helped because we were there before the air conditioner even kicked in. Dustin was all decked out in his work gear...I caught all the ladies in my doctor's office checking him out. One major bonus I love about this practice over my LI practice is that my ultrasounds are done in the same building as my doctor's appointments. I used to have to go to a different place. So we check in for the ultrasound and meet our tech...who is the NICEST EFFING PERSON ON THE PLANET. She took her time with us, showing us every little detail and getting some truly amazing pictures.

The baby is getting big. I was very uncomfortable because up until a day or two ago, she was still laying sideways. She's now head down, and while I can feel her kicking my lungs, she's no longer jammed in my hips, which was EXTREMELY icky and the reason for my severe discomfort. Her head is resting right on my bladder, which explains the 900 trips to the bathroom each day, but I don't even care. Everything was PERFECT.

You may notice I'm using the "she" pronoun more freely. Yes, we got 100 percent confirmation that it's a girl. She was super cooperative today, twisting and turning and giving our tech the opportunity to get shots of all of her important parts...we saw the heart with four perfect, thumping valves, a perfect spine, a completely normally formed face, two kidneys and a million other little measurments that are beyond my medical knowledge. All in all though, the results were PERFECT across the board.

She has very big feet, and looooong fingers. Her little cheeks are getting chubby...both the ones on her face and her butt. She's measuring 24 weeks, 6 days everywhere except for her belly, which is about a week ahead of the rest of her. I am not surprised, look at her mom.

I need to write a nice note to that sono tech. She really took her time and was so nice. She explained everything. It was NOTHING like the last sono I had on the island, where the woman spent a total of 8 minutes with us before giving up and saying "it's probably a girl...she wasn't really being cooperative."

I said to Dustin that I think it just hit me today that this is actually happening. I think that caught him off guard. He asked why it took this long to realize that...and I ashamedly admitted that I was afraid something would go wrong and make this all go away. I was so uncomfortable...and feeling so weird for the past few weeks, I had convinced myself that something horrible had happened. After getting through the ultrasound with flying colors...and then the pee test (normal) blood pressure (117/72) and the weight check (10 pounds total so far in the pregnancy)...I realized that sometimes you just feel shitty when you're pregnant. There were a few days I could barely move...but that's normal when you have a big footed kid jabbin at your insides, I guess.


We walked away with the most incredible pictures so far. One just makes my heart melt and I can't stop staring at it. It's my baby girl, looking right at us, with a HUGE, open mouthed smile. It's incredible. We were able to see her moving her little mouth pretty much the entire time, and it just makes it so real. A little person, with a little mouth...and a huge belly and feet.