Day 44 - July 21

On Tuesday, Allison and I went to the doctor to have a sonogram.

Now keep in mind, I did not go to the initial doctor visit, so Allison had done one sonogram before. At that point, there was no real movement, very few observable features, and Allison basically described the baby as a peanut. Not to be cute, but that it actually looked like a tiny peanut. Go back and look a the picture from the previous entries and you'll agree.

What we saw this time was breathtaking.

At first, we saw what was clearly a little body shape, big round head, some shadows around the face area. It was obviously right from the start that the baby had nearly quadrupled in size since the last test, only 3 weeks before. The thing about a sonogram is that you're not really seeing in 3 dimensions. It's a high-contrast image of blacks and whites. Anything that's in the "foreground", or basically making contact with the surface of the uterus, shows up in white, and things that are further into the background seem to disappear into the black. The result is almost a low-relief image bunch of the baby with a lot of shadows, where a limb may appear not to even be connected to the baby if they're positioned with their elbow back. 

The baby was looking right at us! Even with the surreal quality of the sonogram, we could see the fact clear as day, with two little arms, two little legs, and a big face with eyes facing straight ahead. Admittedly, it looked a lot like a Martian. Decide for yourself: 

But the really amazing thing was to see it moving. We could see little legs kicking, little arms flapping. Elbows and knee joints moving independently. To see this little person, who started so abstract and now moving around of its own accord, it really took my breath away. We even caught a glimpse of a tiny hand with 5 nearly microscopic fingers. At one point, the baby turned and seemed to grab hold of the umbilical cord, our doctor pointed out to us. It was really a sight to behold. 

I made the announcement at work on Thursday and my team was really supportive. I'm grateful to work in an office with people who really value and respect what an important and life-changing event this really is.

Next Friday, we're going for a different type of sonogram to test for down syndrome. Supposedly, the resolution on this test is going to be extremely high, compared to the tests we've had so far. Supposedly, we're going to see the baby in high definition and most importantly, we'll have the opportunity to discover the gender! We definitely do want to find out, but not that day. We have a whole plan; more on that later...