Penny

But first, a story.

My doctor's office had said that, for the sort of ultrasound I was having, I needed to have a full bladder.

KT had backed that up, saying that if I wasn't full enough, they'd catheterize me and put water in.

Ew. So before Matt and I drove down to Newport News for my ultrasound appointment, I drank a little less than two cups of water. I needed to pee before we'd left Williamsburg. I gritted my teeth. I thought Zen thoughts. I practiced my Kegels.

It got a little better when we got to the hospital and I was no longer sitting in a vibrating car and going over bumps in the road. I found a position in the waiting room chairs that allowed my bladder maximum expanding, and waited. It did not help that there was a bathroom right there, off the waiting room.

It didn't help long. I muttered, "I should ask them if I really need a full bladder."

"You didn't ask?" Matt said.

"Well, my doctor said, but these people didn't give me any special instructions."

"I could go ask for you," he offered.

"No, that's all right. ... Yes. Please."

Matt asked, and it turned out that my pregnancy is advanced enough that they didn't need my bladder full. I bolted for the bathroom.

We did have a neat moment in the waiting room, while I was searching for something to concentrate on that wasn't my bladder. I was stretched back in the chair, and the baby started kicking very vigorously. So I smoothed my dress over my stomach and watched.

"What are you doing?" Matt asked.

"I thought I'd see if I can see anything when the baby kicks," I answered. And just then, a tiny bit of my stomach distended, very briefly, in conjunction with the internal sensation of a kick. "Neat! Did you see it?"

"No, I wasn't really looking." Matt looked at my stomach more closely.

The next time it happened, there must have been a good half-centimeter of distortion on the surface of my stomach.

"I saw it!" Matt cheered. He put his hand over the spot, hoping to feel a kick, but Particle chose that moment to take a little nap. Poor Matt. Naturally, as soon as he took his hand away again, the kicking started up again. I saw one weird... ripple effect, is the best I know how to describe it. That was so bizarre that I held the dress out away from my body for a minute, not certain I really wanted to see it.

But really, the whole thing was too fascinating to ignore.

The ultrasound itself went fairly well, though Particle was being coy.

The nurse/technician found the top of the head and made measurements. She told us technical things we didn't understand, and added soothing comments like, "That's just great. Just about perfect. Everything looks wonderful." We appreciated those.

She found the butt and legs, but the legs were firmly clamped together. "We'll come back to that," she promised.

She found the arms and took more measurements. She found the heart, and spent a while trying to get a decent angle for the shot the doctors wanted, but since Particle's back was turned toward the top of my stomach, she eventually had to give up.

The spine was easy to see, though. It looked very healthy. "Keep taking those calcium chews," Matt said.

The nurse found Particle's face. It was moving around a lot - Particle was bobbing around - and because the depth kept changing, it kept flashing back and forth between a fleshy face and a skeleton, which was a little disturbing. But the fleshy face looked just like a kewpie doll. Very cute. We saw little fists waving about.

The doctor came in later to try to get the heart again. She found a fantastic shot of a hand, fully opened - you could count all the fingers and everything. But she wandered off to look at something else, and by the time I'd asked her to go back and get us a print of the hand, it had closed into a fist again. Alas.

That's why I don't have a picture up here. The two prints they snagged for us were face shots that are extremely indistinct and partially skeletal. I may scan one in tomorrow and post it in my regular journal, but I didn't take the time to scan them at KT's after the appointment.

They did say that because the heart shot was so indistinct (trying to see through my stomach and the placenta and the baby's own body is pretty rough) that my doctor might schedule a second ultrasound, in a few weeks. We'll see. Everything else was so good, though, that I'm guessing my doctor will probably just let it slide.

So, I guess that's my report...

What's that? Hmm?

Oh! Yeah, the nurse eventually went back to the legs. By that time, Particle was practicing the splits, practically, making a very fat "V" shape in the monitor.

We didn't get another angle to confirm - as I said, the kid was being coy - but we're pretty sure it's a girl.

A name will be chosen as soon as I can browbeat Matt into doing it.