It's a . . .

I had my ultrasound this morning!  It was really different from the last 2 I've had at Bethesda.  With Faith, we were down in the bowels of the basement, and by the time I was pregnant with Micah, the radiology department had moved up to the main floor.  But with both of these ultrasounds, they were done in the radiology department, which does all the ultrasounds on everyone for everything, not just OB ones.  So they had rules--the first part of the ultrasound, your (one) support person couldn't be watching, so Bob had to wait in the waiting room until he was called back.  Meanwhile the ultrasound was conducted in perfect silence (I usually dozed off), until all the images were captured.  Then Bob would come back, we both would get a quick run-down ("Here's the face . . . heart . . . hands . . . it's a boy, etc."). 

BUT now Bethesda has a nice "prenatal assessment clinic" where they do the OB ultrasounds, along with other prenatal testing, and the experience was totally different--more like my civilian ultrasounds.  Bob was there the whole time, the lady chattered through it, telling us what she was looking for, measuring, etc.  Much nicer!  So the baby looks perfectly healthy and is measuring just right (17 w, 3 d, and I am technically 17 w, 5 d), and the baby was not shy about sharing that he is another boy!  I knew it!  With my boy pregnancies, I don't even feel pregnant in the beginning--no nausea or anything--and that's how this one was!  So yay--Micah will have a buddy and a roommate, and I won't have to worry about always have to set up playdates for Micah, since he won't be the lone boy hanging out in the middle of a bunch of girls!

The only potential issue is that my placenta is low right now, over the cervix.  Hopefully it will move up though as I get bigger.  I don't usually have ultrasounds this early, so that's probably the problem, but I have to go back at 32 weeks for another one to make sure the placenta is out of the way.

While I was waiting to start the ultrasound, I was contemplating how much more pleasant ultrasounds are now.  No one ever talks about this, but they used to be very painful.  Ask someone who has high school age kids!  They used to tell you to drink an enormous amount of water--64 oz.?--and you had to finish 1 hour before your ultrasound started.  And then--you weren't. allowed. to. pee.  At all!  They wanted you to have the all-important "full bladder" so they could get a good picture.  Oh my goodness.  The pain!  The incredible discomfort!!  So you had to wait for an hour while your bladder filled up like a balloon, and then you had to lie on your back while the technician pushed around on your super-full bladder with her ultrasound wand!  I would about be in tears.  By the time I was having Caleb and Jonathan, I just didn't drink as much water, and I would pee a little bit right before so I wasn't in excruciating pain, but for Nathan especially, I followed the directions to. the. LETTER, and it was so awful!  Now they don't say a thing about having a full bladder or drinking insane amounts of water and then waiting an hour without peeing.  I just want all you newer moms to know how incredibly fortunate you are that you will only know ultrasounds as fun times, and not as mini torture sessions!