About Baby

Image source: thebump.com

Yesterday was my first ultrasound, so I thought that perhaps today I would bring Baby into the blog a bit more, now that I've given out the news about him/her.  :)  We had been trying for a baby since January of this year, and I noticed that things were just feeling a bit...different...around the end of the month of April.  We decided to wait for a week after we first started to suspect that something was going on, and I took an at-home pregnancy test on May 5th.  (Cinco de Mayo made for a good landmark date for us--not because we had been out celebrating or anything that evening, but because it's a holiday with a distinctive name, in the month of May!)  

That adventure went something like this: we were currently living at my parents' house, in the apartment-esque set of rooms on the third floor.  I pocketed one of the pregnancy tests and went downstairs to the bathroom on the first floor, took the test, and sat down to wait for the three minutes that it takes for the test results to become visible on the test's screen.  I had gotten my hopes up before in the past year, but the results had been negative then--so this time, I was trying very hard not to give in to my hopes and suspicions.  I hadn't ever before felt odd in the way that I had been feeling that past week, but...I chalked it up to any number of other reasons, not wanting to settle completely on suspecting that I was pregnant.  

And then...that very, very, very faint second line appeared on the test's screen window.  

It was so light, but I could see it, and the instructions on the box said that even a faint second line meant a positive result.  There was a second line.  I was shaking all over and praying and smiling like crazy--the results were right in front of me.  I was pregnant.  After collecting myself enough to make the trip back upstairs, I went to find Mr. Darcy.  He was waiting for me in our room, and I let him see the test strip with the two lines.  He was every bit as elated as I was--and here, the word "elated" is very much an understatement.  ;)  But it'll suffice.   

After that, we had a few matters to attend to.  First, I had to go to my usual doctor--a general practitioner at a family medical practice--and have the pregnancy confirmed.  When this had been done, we arranged for both his parents and mine to meet us at our new apartment, so that we could give them their first grand tour of the place.  The new apartment has two rooms upstairs, and we had placed a pair of pacificers on the shelf in the second room's closet, along with the official test results from the doctor.  We gave our parents the tour around the apartment, taking them to the second bedroom last, and Mr. Darcy pulled open the closet's doors so that they could all see the interior of the closet itself.  That was when his father picked up the box of pacifiers and said--

"I know what this means.  Someone's having a baby!"

Having told our parents the joyful news--and celebrated with Baby's delighted grandparents-to-be--we began to let everyone else know about our little munchkin in the following weeks.  We waited to tell everyone until I was over ten weeks along, when the pregnancy was well-established.  In the meantime, we moved to a new city and set up our new home, and life settled into its new pace.  

A few weeks ago, at the end of June, I had my first pre-natal visit to the ob-gyn.  I had blood drawn and filled out some paperwork, but the most exciting part of that entire visit was the moment when I finally got to listen to the sound of my baby's heartbeat on the Doppler system.  It was surreal, and indescribably wonderful.  I cried a little bit as I heard the steady, whooshing noise of the heart of the tiny life that is growing inside of me.  The baby is really there, I kept thinking to myself.  It's alive, and it's mine.  What a gift--what a miracle from the Lord.  

I had a few times that were more stressful than the standards first-time-mother worries.  One of the blood test results that the doctor had done came back with an abnormal reading--but all of that was caused simply by the pregnancy having been given the wrong starting date.  I was given an appointment to have a morphology ultrasound done; I did some research and talked to some people in the medical field, and learned that this kind of ultrasound is a more high-profile ultrasound than the standard ultrasounds.  All that means, "high profile", is that the ultrasound itself is more detailed, so that the ultrasound technician can see the baby better and more accurately scan it for any potential problems.  

Yesterday, as I have said already, was the day of that ultrasound.  The day before, I had had another normal visit to the ob-gyn; I heard the baby's heartbeat again at that appointment, and that was just as wonderful to hear then as it had been the first time.  Waiting to be ushered into the room where the ultrasound would be done was incredibly nerve-wracking.  I'm a nervous mess when any type of doctor's visit is concerned, for the most part--but this appointment was especially important to me.  My mom was there with me, though, for that appointment and for the ob-gyn visit the day before, and that helped immensely.  It was so nice to not have to be alone for that visit.  Mr. Darcy couldn't be released from his job that day, so having my mother there was a tremendous blessing.

How can I describe the moment when the image of my baby showed up on the ultrasound screen?  Even though it was a black and white picture that still tended to be a little confusing to look at sometimes--Now, what is that I'm seeing?  Is that the stomach as seen from the top of the baby's head?  Is that a leg there?  How is the baby positioned?--it was the most amazing sight that I've ever beheld.  I don't really look very pregnant yet, but the picture on the screen was yet another very real proof of the baby's presence.  It is definitely there, and it already has a personality!  The ultrasound technician kept trying to coax it into moving so that we could see it better, and it just wanted to stay where it was, snuggled up against the placenta: one tiny little arm thrown behind its head, with its little feet tucked up.  

Just when I thought that the whole moment couldn't become any more incredible, the ultrasound technician switched the viewing mode to a 3D/4D picture.  That is when the tears started falling, for me.  On the screen, there was this perfect, tiny, beautiful little face--the face of my baby.  I could already see that the baby has its daddy's bone structure, around its eyes and forehead, and it has his mouth as well; its cute little button nose, though--I think--is mine.  My heart has never felt so full of love.  The moment that I looked at my baby's face, I was completely lost to head-over-heels love for the precious little life that is so cozily snuggled up in my womb.  I'm a mother now; the child on the ultrasound screen is my baby.  My baby.  I've never seen anything so beautiful, in all my life.  

After the ultrasound appointment, I sent a picture of the baby's face to Mr. Darcy right away.  He called me very shortly after, and I could hear the smile in his voice over the phone; I could hear the tears of joy and pride and love in his voice as we talked.  The technician had been able to coax the baby into stretching out enough so that we could see if it was a boy or a girl...

But I'm keeping that news until another time.  There's a gender reveal party in the works--or there will be, soon--so please stay posted for that news!  In the meantime, you'll definitely be seeing more Baby-related posts from me, as the weeks continue on and things develop.  After all, I've got a nursery to start planning now, and you know how very much I love to design things.  :D

Until later...

À bientôt!

--Cait + Baby