Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Say hello to...

our healthy little Jelly Bean!

Yup, that's a foot and you can even see the metatarsals--isn't that cool?!
Waving hello!  (I just noticed it looks like there's too many fingers! Hope there's only 5!! lol... oh, and that's the cord sticking out, I already asked!)
My placenta is right by the baby's face, so we didn't get any good pics this time--this was the best she could do)
Jelly bean was shaking his/her fist at us!
This one is harder to make out, but the big round blob on the right side is the face!  Jelly Bean turned to look at the wand.  The two smaller black holes are the eye orbits and you can see the nose too.


So, yes, our ultrasound went great!  The sonographer even said that the baby has 'a beautiful heart' which made me feel a lot better!  It seems like there's so many birth defects out there, and I was certainly relieved that they didn't find any with our Jelly Bean.  Our Quad Screen (genetic test for Trisomy 21-Downs' Syndrome, neural tube defects such as spina bifida or anencephaly, Trisomy 18-Edwards Syndrome or another type of chromosome abnormality) also came back perfect!  God is growing us a beautiful, healthy baby!

However, this baby is already proving a little stubborn... the poor sonographer worked for about 40 minutes trying to get Jelly Bean to roll over so she could get a better picture of the spinal column!  She got pictures of everything else she needed and we could see the cord, but not clearly enough for a picture.  The baby was also stretched out like he/she was laying in a hammock--complete with an arm behind the head, legs fully stretched out and little feet crossed at the ankles!  The head/face were right up by my placenta, so she couldn't get very good profile or face pictures either, which was disappointing.  The good news is that we get to have another ultrasound at our 23 week appointment (in FOUR weeks!) to see if she can get it then!  I'm just excited to get to see Jelly Bean again!  Hopefully this time he/she will be in a more cooperative mood!

As indicated by the constant 'he/she' above, we elected not to find out Jelly Bean's gender.  We just looked away when she had to examine those regions.  I know Brandon probably wants to know, but he's playing along with me wanting it to be a surprise--what a great husband I am blessed with!  I think having a surprise at the end will be fun!  And, if we found out it was a girl, I'd REALLY have a hard time not spending money.  Alyssa and my Mom both think it's another boy anyway, but I guess we'll wait and see what God has in store for us!  We'll be happy either way!

Thanks for listening everyone... good night!