The Real Deal

(Please take note that the above picture is from Google and not my belly)

The strangest thing about the first trimester of pregnancy for me was that sometimes I would "forget" I had something growing inside of me. I mean I couldn't feel it, see it or hear it. The only thing I knew for sure was my body was going haywire, but when I wasn't throwing up, my hair was freshly washed and I was going about my day to day I would literally forget that I was pregnant. It wasn't until my first ultrasound where I actually occurred to me the this baby thing was for real. Looking back, I think this was also a turning point for DH, the day he really realized that he was gonna have a kid in 6 months. I mean he had been enduring my morning nasal symphony and upchuck pyrotechnics for weeks but I don't think it was until he looked up at that TV screen in the ultrasound room did make him realize...oh crap! this is for real.

At what I thought was my 12 week mark we had gone to have an ultrasound. My Doctor had said I could do a IPS (Integrated Prenatal Screening) for potential birth defects, she said it's optional to check for potential Downs Syndrome and other potential issues. I mainly wanted to do it so I could see our baby. I really didn't know what to expect, I mean I had seen ultrasound pictures before but they were always pretty clear; head, hands, tummy, legs everything was already there and you knew it was a baby. So imagine my initial surprise when I saw what looked like a bean with hands and feet up on the screen. I got kind of freaked out to tell you the truth. Eventually angles changed and enlargements were made and our little bean started to look more baby like; a cross between a baby and a bean actually but a tiny human none the less. What was amazing to me was not the shape of the fetus, but the heart beat. This little flicker on the screen that was flickering so frigg'n fast it was hard be believe what it really was. I looked over at DH and he had this huge smile. " That's too cool" at that moment we both knew that this was all for real. I may occasionally had forgotten I was pregnant but as they said in the movie Juno, this was a doodle that couldn't be undone.

There was however a slight miscalculation on my part. Surprise, suprise, I wasn't 12 weeks along as I had originally thought. Seems the little bean was smaller and the tech pegged me at 11 weeks; so I had to go back in 7 days to do the test. Which of course was alright with me, just one more chance to see my insides and have a private screening with DH of our baby to be.