Some days just suck. No way around it. As Alexander would say, they are terrible, horrible, no good very bad days.
But sometimes those terrible, horrible, no good very bad days have silver linings, and today’s silver lining was great. We got to see an ultrasound of the baby.
I wouldn’t even be able to pinpoint the number of ultrasounds I have had over the course of my three pregnancies, but I would say I have had at least 25 if not more. I’m a bit of an expert. Maybe I just have a very photogenic uterus, but doctors can’t seem to stop taking pictures. (I can’t believe I just said that.) Anyway, it goes with the territory of a high risk pregnancy.
Today the high risk doctors wanted to do a 12 week nt screening to gauge our risk of Downs. I never do Downs testing when I’m pregnant. There are way too many false positives, and I won’t undergo an amnio nor would I abort, so it seems kind of pointless. I figure if something is wrong then we’ll figure it out sooner or later.
But this time, I wasn’t in the mood to argue, and truth be told, I wanted to see the little wiggle worm, and so we went through with it. It was awesome seeing him/her on the screen for about twenty minutes. During the last ultrasound, the baby was only a little blob on the screen. Today though, s/he was a fully limbed, moving little person. My favorite part was seeing those little hiccup movements that fetuses do.
As I said, I’ve had a ton of ultrasounds, but I think today’s was actually the most special because on that screen, I could see the little baby that I am going to love for the rest of my life. I saw the little arms moving, and I could picture those arms wrapped around my neck in a huge, giant toddler hug. I saw the little hands, and I imagined the hands clenched in fists doing that little newborn yawn. I saw the future in my baby.
For whatever reason, that never really happened when I saw ultrasounds of my girls. I would see them and relish in how real they were and get excited about having them in my arms, but it was hard for me to envision what was on the screen as the little person who would so dramatically change our lives once she entered the real world. Perhaps it’s because it’s our third child and we’ve done this before, but I really understood that this was my baby.
It’s hard to explain. It was just a really cool experience. And I needed a cool experience today, so I’m grateful that I got it.
Also, I must say that I think this little one is a kicker. I know I sound wacko when I say I can feel the baby move at 12 weeks, but I really think I feel him or her. I obviously don’t feel limbs or individual movements, but all of a sudden, I will feel a pressure on my stomach and what feels like little scratches. I am convinced it is my baby. And if you think I’m crazy for saying I feel it this early, feel free to think I’m crazy because I most likely am. But I’m going to continue to believe it is him or her.