18w4d Appointment

What a great day!  Veterans' Day is already a special day for me and MJ, but today was also our "big" ultrasound, otherwise known as the anatomy scan.  It's when most parents confirm the gender of their baby, although we made sure to remind the technician that we didn't want to know.  The ultrasound took about 40 minutes, and it was wonderful to see Otto for so long!  He was sucking his thumb and seemed very relaxed, because he didn't move much at first.

The technician measured the length of many of his bones, and the width and circumference of his head; counted his fingers and toes; checked his eyes and mouth, and even looked to see if he had a cleft palate (he doesn't).  She looked closely at his heart and confirmed that all four ventricles are in proper working order, and also confirmed that his kidneys are functioning correctly.  The umbilical cord has three blood vessels: two arteries and one vein, which is perfect. 

At one point the ultrasound picture was full of blue and red blobs.  She explained that the red showed arteries bringing oxygenated blood to the baby's body, and blue showed veins bringing the deoxygenated blood back to the heart.  It's absolutely amazing that modern technology can actually detect blood not only flowing through the body, but whether it's oxygenated blood or not!

I wasn't able to videotape the entire 40-minute ultrasound, but after the technician was done with all her measurements and assessments, she allowed me to turn on my video recorder for a few minutes.  She even jiggled my stomach a few times to try to wake him up so we could see him moving around.  Otto finally stretched out his legs for us, waved his arm, and wiggled his fingers.

She confirmed that my placenta is anterior, which means it's in front of the baby.  This means it may take longer for me to feel the baby move, because the placenta is cushioning his movements, but it's totally fine.  And I've gained a total of 8 pounds since the beginning of this pregnancy, which is slightly less than average (although it didn't worry my doctor one bit).

What an extra special way for us to celebrate Veterans' Day!  We are headed out to dinner to commemorate our wonderful day.