-32 weeks...speechless

On Tuesday Jimmy and I had our first ultrasound and doctor's appointment. After a 3 hour drive where Jimmy slept most of the way (remember, 7 AM is the middle of the night for him), we got to the clinic ON TIME for our appointments at 11 and 11:30. This is important to remember later.

I got checked in, which took forever, and we waited to be called back. I don't know when I've ever been so excited and nervous at the same time. They were doing both kind of ultrasounds, external and internal, so I had to get undressed. The lady finally came back and went to work. Oh my. I don't think anything could have prepared me for the shock and wonder to see OUR BABY on the screen. I remember reaching for Jimmy's hand, but I really can't remember what I was thinking. I asked her if we could hear the heartbeat, but she said they didn't like to try to do that this early, that it required a lot more energy from the sonogram than they wanted to exert. She was able to show us the heart beating (!) and measure it. It was so amazing. Jimmy immediately texts Deven to let him know he has created the first dragon baby. Even though it isn't in this picture, in some the yolk sac looks like a giant appendage on the baby.

We got out of ultrasound a little after 12. Obviously they were late calling us back. Around 12:20 we were called back to a room. We were in there for almost 2 hours. We finally asked the nurse if we could leave and get lunch. She checked and said we were the next to be seen, and she would bring us some menus for the restaurants downstairs. *Side note: the clinic is above a restaurant center--there are about 7 restaurants on the ground level. No shopping stores though. Very interesting.* I told her I realized her ultrasound appointment had gone over, and she assured me it was just the doctor, who likes to talk. Which I'm sure will be great on the days I have a million questions and we have things we need to plan, but that day was just irritating. Just as we were about to order food, the fellow (a full-fledged doctor working on his specialization) came in to talk. We went over the basic stuff, got a pap smear, and spoke with Dr. J. She said we would follow the normal course of visits, but would also do monthly growth scans. Monthly growth scans=monthly ultrasounds! It is still very early and so we didn't go a lot into further planning.

My next appointment is July 15th and we'll be doing the first trimester screening, which consists of blood drawing and ultrasounds. Even though we don't really have any risk factors for chromosomal defects, it will be good to know if the baby needs more testing later on in pregnancy than just doing an amnio or some of the other invasive tests.