The Nest

Everything Ultrasound

Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2008 4:29 PM

It's a very cool experience.  I'm not going to lie and say it made the pregnancy more real for me, but it definitely affected me.  I posted photos in my bio, by the way, so check them out if you feel like it.

First of all, what you see when someone shows you a sonogram photo is NOTHING compared to what you see on the big TV screen when having the ultrasound.  The screen is so clear, so sharp, and the u/s tech can zoom in to specific areas.  It was so awesome to see the 4 distinct chambers of the heart beating blood through them.  The printouts she gave us were foggy and drab compared to the quality we saw on the TV.  But that's okay, I don't need those images to remember how sweet it was to see our baby cover his face with his arms and hands, create shadows on his chest with his moving arms which prevented the u/s tech from getting a good measurement of his kidney, and kick his little legs against what looked like a very tightly-packed uterus.

The lights are completely turned off, so it's almost romantic sitting there with your husband...and well, an ultrasound tech...and me laying there with goop (pre-warmed up though, how great is that) all over my belly and my sweatshirt shoved up around my neck.  So, romantic, but not really.

My husband was fascinated with the technology of the whole thing.  I couldn't believe how much you could see.  I wish we had a video of it.  Just seeing his movement and all the different angles, I'd probably watch it over and over again.

Regarding the penis...it's ginormous!  Even if we had wanted to keep the sex of our baby a surprise, we would have known as soon as we saw the profile of the baby.  His little penis was sticking straight up from his body.  And that view is standard, so even if we didn't want to know the sex, the tech would have shown us that view and we would have seen the penis, clear as day.

This is funny: The tech asked us first if we want to know the sex.  We both said yes, and that we wanted to know the accuracy of her guess too, like if she was only 75% sure, we wanted to know that.  I told her, "I'd love you to be 100% sure," but she said they never give a 100%, ever.  Since we told her we did want to know, she showed us that between the legs money shot first, and as soon as I saw it, I shouted, "That's a boy!"  The tech said, "Yes it is.  I'd give you a 99% on that one." 

I can't believe how obvious it was.  I had looked up tons of 20 week ultrasound pictures online to see if I could tell the difference between the boys and the girls, and I just thought they all looked the same!  I was so worried I'd leave the ultrasound not trusting for sure what we were told we're having.  But no worries now.

That was honestly the best part of the ultrasound, other than knowing the baby is healthy and growing on target.  I mean, when we knew it's a boy, my husband and I looked at each other like little shocked children (we were both totally convinced it was a girl), and we were just so giddy, saying "boy" over and over.  Chris's smile was so precious.  He felt proud and happy and lucky, I could see it in his face.

So while I have no clue what it's like to wait until the delivery to know the sex of your baby, I definitely think finding out this way is just as exciting.  Either way, it's a complete surprise, it's exciting, and it's something to look forward to.  We'll find out the sex of our next one too.

That's my experience.  Thanks for reading.  Now I need to scurry off and read up on circumcisions, how to clean a penis, and avoiding projectile pee.