u/s

I broke down and had the local ultrasound. Despite my annoyance at the hospital’s dumb and archaic rules (e.g., no telling sex, no partners in the room until the end), I wanted to know if Ninja has anything going on that might interfere with breastfeeding, such as a cleft palate. If it weren’t for that, I would’ve been fine with refusing an ultrasound altogether.

Fortunately, the tech was not as bad as I was led to believe. She was nice. But DH and I were not allowed to view any of the measurements and tests. So I lay there quietly as Ninja tried to escape the u/s wand by hiding under my ribs. (Whoa, that feels weird!) I did get to see the babe’s face, though, when I got up to empty my bladder – I looked at the screen as I was getting back onto the bed. All I thought was: my, what a chubby baby!

Finally, DH was called into the room and the tech pointed the screen toward us. First shot was Ninja’s profile. I started laughing because he looks exactly like DH – right down to the lips and nose. DH has really distinctive lips and I’ve been teasing him that the baby will inherit this characteristic. DH said it wouldn’t happen and so when I pointed out that I was right, DH pretended to pout. (The kid's nose looks overly huge, though, which is weird!)

The tech took her time showing us fingers, toes, spine, and all that. Everything was normal and good. DH was almost frantic with excitement and kept asking the tech to point out certain things – the heart beating, the fingers curling – and to go back and show him again. It was hard to see much in detail, though, because Ninja takes up so much room in the uterus.

This was my first experience of maternal pride. Ninja got 8/8 on his first test! (In which the tech looked for things like gross motor skills, fine motor skills, practice breathing, etc.) Yes, we are proud of him already!

And I’ll tell ya: Ninja is not a small baby. He’s in the 80th percentile for weight. At 34 weeks, he is pushing 6.5 lbs and he’s got a biggish head. I’ve heard that u/s estimations of weight can be far off, though, so all I can do is laugh about it. Ninja is NOT starving in there!

I wish we could’ve found out the sex. DH did actually tell me this morning that he was ok with me knowing but I reminded him that the hospital won’t divulge that information!