Snow, Heartbeats, Squirming And You

Today, we had our second set of ultrasounds done. These were the ones where they start looking for problems with the baby like too thick of a neck (which means an increased likelihood of Down's Syndrome) and the absence of a nose bone (which means an increased likelihood of something else that I can't remember). The pic above is from ultrasound #1 on 1/2/15, so don't let it fool you. It's really just here for context, but that's not the point of this post.

First, our appointment was at 8am on a crazy cold January morning at a time that Katie & I normally reserve for sleeping. Other folks may think of 7am as "morning," but for us, especially in January, 7am is still "night." As always, we were running slightly behind, so rather than wait for Katie to come with me, I jumped right in, started up the truck (so it'd be warm; see, folks? I'm thinking!) and dug it out from beneath all of the snow that had fallen last night (not that much by Michigan standards). Adrenaline kept us awake through the drive and first attempt at an ultrasound (for which you were not very helpful, Werecub), but I was soon coming close to passing out on a couch as we waited for a consultation. Long story short: it was really early, it was really cold, there was lots of snow.

Second, we got to witness two extraordinary things. We heard this kid's heartbeat.  Last Friday, when we saw the Werecub on the ultrasound for the first time (and failed to blog about it, somehow), it was really neat to see the kid, to see it as a human being and to know it was healthy and growing fast. Today, hearing that heartbeat was not just evidence of life, but an auditory link to that tiny little life. We could watch the heart pulse, hear it pump. Man, that was cool. It's almost like we were in there with you, Werecub! (Which would have been exceedingly strange for Katie, since she's who you're inside of in the first place, but we won't worry too much about causality and physics and such when we're being sentimental.)

The other extraordinary thing was seeing you squirm on camera, Werecub. And by camera, I mean ultrasound. And by squirm, I actually mean squirm. You see, you weren't cooperating with the ultrasound tech, not showing her the parts of your anatomy she needed to see, and so she had to coerce you to move. Turns out that this is done by jiggling you. Up and down. When your mom has to pee (because they need her to have a full bladder when they ultrasound her & you). Which apparently you like about as much as your mom does. Just like you will probably do when I do the same thing to you after you're born (folks, that's jiggling, not shaking; I'm pretty sure that everyone out there who's ever gotten to spend time with a baby has, at one point or another, jiggled it). With your response to said jiggling (the squirming! Oh, the squirming!), I'm pretty sure you're going to give your mom a lively third trimester.

I think we're in the clear on OBGYN appointments for a few weeks, so until I have something to report, I'll try to keep track of all my impending future baby thoughts and share them here.