Our last doctor visit took us on a roller coaster ride. We went to the medical university to get a more advanced ultrasound of the babies and were so excited to find out the sex! To us, all planning was on hold until we found out this news. I don't know how anyone waits 9 months! We sat in the waiting room for a good long while. It may have only been 20 minutes but it felt like hours. We both read our magazines and Damon suggested that he might trade in one of his "Guns & Ammo" subscriptions for a parenting magazine!!! My how times change.
Finally they called our name and we followed our technician, Julie, back to the room. I tried not to notice her beautiful smile and perfectly flat stomach. I think Damon tried hard too. Anyway, in the next few minutes Julie quickly became our best friend as she led us through exploring our babies. We started with Baby A, the one closest to the cervix. We watched as Julie checked the spine and each little bone (looks great!). She checked for a cleft palate (negative), checked the belly for a black spot to show the baby's swallowing normally (check), checked around the kidneys and other intestines for normal blood flow to show everything is working perfectly (check) and then to the heart. We had watched both babies heart beat on the ultrasound at our normal doctor’s office many times but had never actually had the pleasure of listening to it. We watched it flutter on the screen as Julie pulled up the sound.
“Whompa, Whompa. Whompa. Whompa.” My eyes filled with tears. It made everything a little more real. I had an overwhelming urge to grab my baby and give it kisses! Baby’s heart rate: 143 bpm, perfectly normal! I searched back in my mind trying to remember what they say about heart rates… is it a boy if it is under 150 beats? Or 140? I couldn’t remember, but it really didn’t matter because Julie went there next… We looked at the little butt and both squinted our eyes… is that something there? “It’s a girl!” Julie exclaimed and flashed the screen pink.
“Ha ha.” I looked at Damon and smiled. He looked a little nauseous, but hopeful. We had one more chance at a boy. “You’re gonna have a little girl” I told him. He smiled weakly back at me.
After Baby A checked out, we moved onto Baby B. We went through Baby B’s body parts a little bit faster since she had already explained what she was checking for with the first one. Baby B also looked great! Spine and bones - great. No cleft palate. Healthy belly, kidneys, organs. Then she went straight to the bottom. We squinted again and… the screen flashed pink again – another girl!!!
Wow. Two girls. I was so excited but I think I would have been just as excited for any combination. I had thought it would be cool to have one of each, but also thought that same-sex twins are really cool. I know how close my sister and I are at 16 months apart and can’t even imagine how strong the bond is between twins.
Aww… but poor Damon. He seemed terrified to have two girls. I looked at him and his head was down and slowly shaking from side to side. “Aww, hun.” I said and rubbed his back. “These little girls are going to LOVE you!”
“But my fishing buddy…” he said.
“The girls will love to go fishing with you!” both Julie and I told him and Julie told us of her fond childhood memories fishing with her Dad. Then she pulled up the 3-D image of Baby B and we watched in awe as we could literally see each movement she made. She opened her mouth real wide and Julie spoke for her – “I’ll go fishing with you Dad!”
We all laughed and the air lifted a little. We continued to watch in 3-D as Baby B tried to suck her little fingers while Baby A was giving her good kicks in the face and upper body. Baby A was a little kicker! She would pull her knees in all the way to her chest and then – POW! – kick them straight out in front of her, unfortunately hitting her target Baby B. We felt so bad for Baby B, but Julie assured us that the kicks weren’t harmful as they were floating in liquid and didn’t even weigh a pound yet. “Baby A is grounded when she comes out,” Damon exclaimed and we all laughed again.
Julie continued to check the rest of Baby B. We listened as her heart beat at 149 bpm and then watched as Julie pulled up picture after picture of her heart. All of a sudden the room became very quiet. “Click, click, click” went the machine as Julie looked at different views of Baby B’s heart. She seemed to spend more time studying each picture than she had before. My own heart started to beat a little faster. Worry started to creep in, but I pushed it away. “Everything’s fine silly,” I reassured myself. I guess Damon felt it too, because he “hmmmed” and then asked Julie, “What? Do you see something?”
“No,” she said. “It looks great.” She said without much feeling as she then pulled up different angles of both Baby B and Baby A. “Click, click, click” again as she took still shots of each angle.
I tried to stay positive. I tried to make light, small talk and it fell flat. Julie wrapped up her clicking and pulled off about 20 pictures from the ultrasound machine.
“Okay!” she said. “Here are some pictures of your babies for you to look at while I go get the doctor. Enjoy!”
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Awww sounds like you had a great experience. Good thing you got someone cool like Julie :)
ReplyDeletelmao...it's such a guy thing. When my son found out his first born was to be female (he KNEW it was a boy) he called me and said.
ReplyDelete"MOMMMMMMMMMM! MY baby boy has a VAGINA!"
ugh, men!
i will tell you now? She is all daddy's girl...much to the sadness of her mama and her gramma! :-)