Linda's Second Doctor's Visit

Tuesday, May 8

Modern technology is great. We had no idea that on the first doctor's visit (4/10/07) we'd get to see the kid on ultrasound. It was unfortunate that we didn't know that, since we figured I wouldn't need to go, that they'd only be doing blood tests and stuff. Well, they did do one, and I missed out on seeing the kid for the first time. Suck. But Linda got to see it, and here's the first look at Baby G, at 8 weeks:

(between the two pluses)

Hey there! As they say in South Philly, “how you’se doin’?”

I was pretty excited for the second visit, which was this past Tuesday. Initially, they were only going to listen to the heartbeat. This was to be done with this weird tool the nurse practitioner (NP) dragged around like an old style blood pressure machine. It was some kinda fancy microphone hooked up to what looked like a Fischer-Price loudspeaker. Verrrry advanced looking technology…though not quite so. Not surprisingly, when NP put it up to Linda' belly, she couldn't isolate the sound of the heartbeat. All we heard was a bunch of static like a 2-way radio switching over to talk mode, interspersed with short bits of a low swishing sound. Couldn't tell what it was from where we stood, though NP said the swishing might have been the heartbeat.

NP wasn't feeling it, and if she wasn't, we weren't. So off we went to the ultrasound room, even though weren't supposed to be having one done on that visit. Everybody wanted to see at Baby G at that point. NP fired up the machine, and I got my first look at Baby G. (Unfortunately we don't have that pic; too excited to ask.) The kid was right there, in living color(ish). It really hit right then that we were going to be parents. For his/her part, Baby G couldn't sit still with all the excitement. (S)he was jumping all around like an astronaut training for zero gravity in one of those Vomit Comet planes. The kid would jump, hit the amniotic sack wall, and bounce around like a slow motion pinball. Way cool. Structurally, all arms and legs were in the right place, and everything looked great. NP gave the thumbs up and we left with big smiles having seen Baby G in action. Sweet.

Next: Ultrasound #3 and 'Wake Up, Lazy Bones'