the littlest maisel

Well, we had our sonogram this morning. Despite my panic at the bad traffic (an accident somewhere? We saw a fire truck, but no accident) -- and my carping at Matt about not getting up earlier. That set a lovely tone, you can be sure -- we got there pretty much on time. The apologetic receptionist told me that Kaiser hasn't been paying this sort of referral recently, so I had to sign a waiver saying I'd pay it if they wouldn't. Great start!

The experience was different in almost every way than the 20-week sono I had with Lizzy. I had to strip down almost completely for this one; a little weird, but after 1 1/2 pregnancies, I'm well used to it. This time, the technician and doctor told us exactly what they were seeing and doing as they went along, and they had a extra screen that we could see. Last time, I laid (or is it 'lay?' cut me some slack on this one, my gleefully grammatical friends) there in frustrated silence for 20, 25 minutes as they silently measured, prodded, etc. I hate to be sexist here, but it so happened that the last tech was a male, and this was a female. As has been consistent with my pregnancy experiences. (I guess ob-gyn men such as my friend Jason Bromer are in short supply. Unfortunately. And Jason, that was not a crack at your height.)

Everything -- or everything the child allowed us to see -- looked great. It's so trippy to see the spine, the wee heart beating away (144 bpm, I think), the hands waving, the mouth opening and closing. He/she gave us a thumbs-up at one point. But refused to give us a great shot at the crotch.

The doctor came in after that, and said she couldn't tell, but she'd "bet her 50 cents" it was a girl. Matt's whispered response: "Great. Surrounded by women and cats." Hee! Well, we'll make sure one of them (but only ONE of them) is a male cat, then. Just for you, dear.

So that's about all we know. They said the measurements were pretty much on par with the due date. Maybe a day later, making it July 17. Not that it ever happens on that day, anyway.

We got about 20 pics -- I'll have to scan a few and put them on the blog. So you can see how dramatically different OUR child's sonogram looks from EVERY OTHER sonogram photo you've ever seen.