I watch a lot of Youtube. Probably too much. I like to watch the videos that other moms or soon-to-be moms make about their pregnancies and families. However, there's a trend. I haven't found very many Youtube mommies who also work stressful jobs to support the family. Youtube seems to be chock full of stay at home moms who obsess over nursery details and teething toys. Now don't get me wrong, I honestly hope to be that kind of mom someday. I don't see anything at all wrong with staying home to raise children. In fact, I see a lot right about it. Still, it's not practical for us right now. So I'm always searching for a Youtube mom that I can relate to.
ANYway, my point is that my vision (thanks to Youtube) of what my 20-week ultrasound would be like was ... well ... a little off. I had dreams of watching jellybean floating through that grainy black-and-white screen, catching glimpses of his or her little face yawning or sucking a thumb. Hearing those words "it's a ----!" and getting a little teary eyed thinking about all that that simple declaration meant.
Instead, it went something like this.
Doc: "Baby's being a little squirmy, but there's an arm and a hand."
Me, squinting: "Okay..."
Doc: "There's a little open mouth."
Paul: "It's a Terminator baby!"
Doc, crushing what is surely an important internal organ: "Let's see if we can figure out what this kid is."
Me, shaky breath: "I'm feeling kinda sick..."
Doc, handing Paul some cool cloths: "Roll over on your side and take some deep breaths. This happens sometimes."
Me: "Okay, I'm okay now."
Doc: "Baby's legs are kind of squished together, but I'm about 80% sure it's a girl."
Me: "Okay, great! Can I get up now before I lose it in this nice sterile little room?"
All right, obviously that's the Cliff's Notes version. The rest of the story here is that I was quite sick last Friday for our "big" appointment. So sick, in fact, that Paul and I (and jellybean) ended up in the ER later that night. I managed to catch some kind of virus that had me shaking the whole house with fever chills and practically delirious with migraine pain. So the experience likely would have been much smoother had that bug been squashed beforehand.
Still, time to start buying pink! Or maybe stuff that's just 80% pink. Shrug. Everything else Doc checked looked great, normal and healthy. And she's doing fine even after the bug caught me. Sometimes I feel so lucky about how healthy baby and I have been that I just start waiting for something to go wrong. Those thoughts are usually drowned out by this one: We're having a baby girl! Yipee!
