Baby Week 18 – Ultrasound Update
August 7, 2008
It’s a boy! We had the ultrasound this morning at 8am. The technician this time was absolutely wonderful. After 3 glasses of water from 6:30-7:00, my bladder was pretty full. She took a few shots, and then let me completely empty my bladder (which was so much more pleasant than with Xander’s ultrasound where I could only take out “5 small plastic cups worth of fluid”). Then she got right to work on figuring out the sex, and managed to get a pretty clear shot of his little boy parts. When we got there the little guy had both his arms and legs up over his head – amazing how flexible they are at this stage! He straightened out after a while, and then had a good time kicking me in the bladder for a while. Speaking of which, the technician had me empty my bladder another 4 times during the appointment, and told me that if I need to come back again, I don’t need to worry about the “full bladder” instructions (woo hoo!) So, everything looks good, his heartrate was good, his size was good, and we know the sex. I’m a little bit scared about having 3 boys in the house, but I think we’ll manage somehow 
So this week was the big moment – the sonogram. A few mothers has mentioned that it was somewhat uncomfortable – having a full bladder while someone is pressing on your stomach. I didn’t really give it much thought until the morning when I started sucking down my liter of water. I had to drink 1 liter between 9:30 and 10:00 am, which I did. At 10:02, I needed to pee. Of course, the sonogram wasn’t scheduled for 11:00 am, so I had a while to wait. By the time I got to the radiology waiting room, I was doing the pee-pee dance. When the technician (Toni) finally called me in, I explained that I was pretty certain my bladder was going to explode any minute. Toni let me take out 5 plastic cups full of urine (not an easy task!) I made it through about half the procedure (which ended up taking almost 2 hours!) before my bladder was full again. Toni let me take out another 5 plastic cups of urine (even harder to stop the second time around). The reason I was in there so long was that Toni, and then the doctor on call (Dr. Trent) were unable to catch a picture of all four chambers of the heart – they could get two and two, but not all four. Toni suspects that I will be back again in a few weeks for another try. Since the best they could give us was “maybe a girl?” I guess I won’t complain too much if we have to go back, but I’m not looking forward to filling up my bladder again!