The Big Morning

Yesterday's scan went really well. Apart from the fact they couldn't do all the checks they needed to, but I'll come to that in a minute.

The whole morning was a little surreal, and now, short of the 4 pictures we managed to get printed off, it's a little hard to believe it was real! We got there early, which I think was agony for Nik, as she already had to drink plenty of water to make sure her bladder was full for the scan, and already needed the toilet by the time we got there...

In we went, and after twenty minutes of smeared jelly on Nik, and examining the little baby's internal organs etc we were told this: the heart is fine (we could see that, beating away strongly), the liver, kidneys and bladder are all there and all working properly, which means fluid is going through to the baby normally, and the bone structure is good - we could see the spine very clearly, and it was kind of beautiful, showing up as sharp white lines. We could see the person we're meeting around October, and everything was healthy. It was exciting. There was only one or two tests to go.

But there was a problem.

The baby had got itself into a nice, comfy position and steadfastly refused to move. The problem with this was that the last couple of tests they needed to do involved looking into the baby's brain and checking all was well there - but in the position he/she was comfy in, the scan couldn't get the required angle to manage it. So we were sent for a walk. Correction. I was sent for a walk with a pregnant woman who started to really struggle, and looked like she was going to explode like a water bomb when we got back to the hospital.

We went back into the scan room, and they tried again, but baby was, I assume, far too happy to let their health check get in the way of a nice lie down. I think we were secretly satisfied that our baby has already got the priorities of life down in the right order... To add to the comfy position, baby also had their legs firmly crossed, so we couldn't find out the sex, but we're going back next Monday to try again, and see if we can persuade baby to lie the right way for the scan!

So that was the scan. We have a couple of nice pictures which I'll try and get up on here as soon as I can (neither of us have a scanner that works, though, so if anyone wants to help me there... email me!)

We went shopping after that, and got some nice baby things, and a couple of things that they'll have to grow a bit before he/she can wear, but they were too nice to leave behind (at least, that's what Nikki was saying...)

We had stupid grins all over our faces all afternoon, and I think it was a bit of a wrench for Nik to allow me to take the pictures home to show my parents... But after all, she is the one that gets to be kicked and pulled around by the little person wriggling around inside her!