The Ultrasound!

December 5, 2009 | Posted by Jennie

yawning Finally the day we’ve been anxiously awaiting arrived yesterday! Our first official ultrasound. Finally we will get to see our little one and hopefully see all the correct parts in the right places.

Your first ultrasound requires a full bladder which of course is uncomfortable. We had to travel 1.5 hours to St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver for our appointment, so timing my water consumption was a bit tricky. Our appointment was at 10:15am and I had 2 glasses of water before we left so I decided to wait until 9:00 to start drinking my 1 litre bottle of water. We arrived in Vancouver at 9:45 and I was already bursting by then and I had only consumed roughly half of my bottle. So in retrospect, I would have been able to drink the same amount of water in less time and would have been much less uncomfortable.

MJ_profile A full bladder allows the ultrasound technicians to get a good view of the location of the cervix, whether it is fully closed and how thick it is. After the technician has had a good first look at the baby and the cervix they will allow you to expell your urine for the rest of the examination. This was such welcomed news because the enjoyment of the moment was definitely shadowed by my desire to use the washroom! My husband was so great as usual, he too waited to use the bathroom until I could so we could go through it together…how cute is he!

The technicians start by locating all of the arm and leg bones and measure their lengths. They also measure the circumference of the skull, the function of the heart chambers, the function and location of the stomach, kidneys and bladder, the alignment of the spine and of course a variety of other assessments that were unannounced to us.

It was so wonderful to see our little M.J. squirming around inside it’s little home, drinking amniotic fluid and seemingly enjoying every moment of being 19 weeks old. We chose not to know the sex of the baby but I must say the suspense was killing us! Apparently ultrasound technicians are not allowed to tell you the sex until the baby is over 20 weeks old so we wouldn’t have qualified anyway. No less we are really excited to experience the birth the traditional way and enjoy the suspense of the entire journey.

Today we are glowing at our new images of M.J. and passing them on to our friends and family. As far as we know things are looking good, but we do not get any results until the 9th when we have another visit with our OBGYN. This appointment will also give us the results of our pre-screening tests, I believe I will be a bit on edge all week until we get the thumbs up from Dr. Anderson…..