Fingers, Toes, and Pink Hair Bows...

So I had my 3rd and 4th ultrasounds this week. The 3rd being on Wednesday at Dr. Garcia's office. I was 9w0d at the time. This was a "quickie" ultrasound just to make sure we still have a heartbeat and all is well, since I'm too early for them to pick up the heartbeat on the doppler. He has a mini-sized bedside machine which he can wheel right into the exam room and do a quick scan, no need to schedule with the ultrasound tech and use the "Mucho Grande" machine. I think that's so cool that his office does that ......... have I mentioned lately how much I adore my doctor?!?!?! Gosh I'm here to tell ya, having a doctor you completely trust with an office staff that's caring and efficient -- well unfortunately that's extremely hard to find and therefore is pretty much priceless in my book.

Baby measured exactly 9w0d so growth is right on target. I was reminded once again how amazingly developed an unborn baby is, even this young ... we could see little arms and legs clearly visible, and an irresistibly cute profile that reminds me a bit of a gummy bear. As Dr. Garcia fumbled with the machine trying to get a good recording of the heartbeat I asked him, "Do ya see a pink hairbow in there?!?!" He laughed and explained he was trying to look at baby's heart (okay okay, slightly more important than the hairbow), but then joked that maybe he did in fact see something sparkly around the cranial area. He later printed a picture for my memory book, asked the nurse for a red pen, and stepped into the hall. He came back a moment later and handed me the photo, which had one small hand-drawn modification. It didn't show up well when I tried to scan the image and make it digital, so I used photoshop to enhance it a bit. You get the idea:

Still too early to tell for sure, but undeniably I am already itching for some more pink in the house. It will be at least 4-6 weeks or more before we'll get an actual ultrasound view that will tell us pink or blue (poo! I hate waiting!). So until then I'm thinking lots of pink and sparkly thoughts and pretending to be patient.

My 4th ultrasound was this morning, and it was 100% medically unnecessary. Just for the sake of a good cause (well, okay, and my own entertainment too)! My pals at the Pregnancy Resource Center, where I volunteered for a few years before Jamin arrived, called me this week asking if I would be their "model". They were training some new ultrasound technicians today and basically needed a preggie person to be their guinea pig. I was happy to oblige! I got to stare at my little one on the screen for almost two hours and share time with some sweet women so it was definately a win-win for me! I didn't spot any hairbows this time, but I did get to see something even cooler: the baby is moving already! Seriously, I'm certain I've had at least 50 ultrasound scans between the 4 pregnancies but there's something about seeing those little hands waiving at you that just never gets old. I was so tickled to have the chance to see baby kicking and wiggling, especially at 9w3d, and struck once again how God can pack such amazingness into something so tiny.

Here's a little video glimpse from this morning .... it's a pretty blurry image but you're looking at baby's head on the left side of the screen, belly in the middle, then legs and feet kicking on the right-hand side.