Ultrasound!

I finally had my first Utah ob appointment today and it turned out to be the perfect day. When I originally made the appointment, I asked the girl if I could schedule the ultrasound as well, considering I'd be 22 weeks by the time they could fit me in. Unfortunately, I could not, as the doctor must 'prescribe' the ultrasound and I hadn't yet met with him. So I made the appointment with the understanding that I probably wouldn't get the ultrasound until the following week.

In the meantime, Josh got a call for service at Dixie, so he couldn't go to the appointment with me, which was a real let-down. I wanted so badly for him to be able to hear the heartbeat because it makes the whole baby concept so much more real, you know? So he re-scheduled an IMC install for Monday so he could spend Friday at Dixie instead of Thursday. All that shuffling meant he was able to go to my appointment during work hours then drive down on his own time afterward. What a sweetheart! And the best part is I got to go down with him so we didn't have to spend the night apart. I just love that man.

So we get to the office and my doc's medical assistant comes in to take my blood pressure (117/78) and weight (+13 pounds already, oh my!). As she's looking over my Vegas records and making notations in my chart, she asks why I haven't gotten an ultrasound yet. I tell her I couldn't book it until the doctor told me to, and it was too early to get one when I last saw my Vegas doc. She didn't seem too concerned that it took nearly two months for the office to get me in, but she was greatly troubled there was no ultrasound. So she talked to the doctor about seeing if she could sneak us in to the ultrasound room downstairs after he did his examination, and he said to go for it.

Boy, it sure helps to have the right people working your case! We waltzed into the ultrasound room like we owned the place and spent the next 45 minutes looking at every baby detail that popped on the screen. We are delighted and relieved to report that our baby is healthy and whole. All the toes, fingers, arms, legs, brain parts, and heart chambers are present and accounted for. We saw kidneys, umbilical cord blood, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't think of right now.

Oh, and we saw a penis.

Our son is so active. Josh didn't believe how much I feel him moving and kicking around inside me until he saw the little bugger on-screen. The office gave us the last 10 minutes of the ultrasound on video and we've showed it to most of our family and friends. No one knew we were going to get the ultrasound, so we got to surprise everyone with our results! My dad was absolutely stunned at how much babies move, and how incredible it is that he got to see it. And the ultrasound tech noticed our baby tapping his foot in perfect rhythm near the end of the ultrasound - we're guessing he taps to my heartbeat. Only 1lb, 3oz big, but already so talented!

Anyway, here are a couple of highlight pics from the ultrasound, and if I can figure out how to do it, I'll put the foot-tapping on youtube. It was undeniably the best day I've had in a very long time. I'm *very* happy.