Rice, Rice, Baby

I was planning on listening to that song while I wrote this post, but it's late, and Monica's asleep, so I'll just have to play it in my head.

Monica went to the doctor today for an ultrasound, and fortunately I was able to get away from work a little early to join her. We got to see our "baby" for the first time today. I put baby in quotes, because right now it's apparently about the size of a grain of rice. But it's heart just started beating within the last day or so, and while the heart rate is somewhat slow at 120 bpm, they weren't worried too much because it was fast enough, and it will only get faster (as high as 160 bpm apparently.) And even though we were basically looking at some dots, blurs, and flickers in an overall blurry image, it was still cool to see life within the womb. It made things seem that much more "real."

The technician couldn't say much, and we'll have to wait until early next week to get the official word from Monica's doctor, but she (the technician) thought that Monica was about 6 or so weeks pregnant, because the baby was still in the "grain of rice" phase and hadn't entered into the "peanut" phase that occurs around 8 weeks or so. She said that the baby's heart might not have even started beating until today; it was that early.

Apparently she wasn't supposed to show or tell us anything (or even let me in the room), since we were in a satellite office of St. Mary's hospital, and not at Monica's actual doctor (thanks to our WONDERFUL insurance), but when she realized we had to be there for insurance purposes, she softened up a bit, and was able to show both of us what our little one looked like (insofar as a rice grain sized blur looks like much of anything on a computer screen.) It was still neat to see though.

We didn't get any fun pictures, for various reason, but the tech told us to insist that we actually go to St. Mary's hospital for the next ultrasound (since it's right next to where I work), and they would be able to give us some sonogram pictures to keep.

That's about it for now. I'd write more, but I'm really tired, and I can't think straight, so I'm going to wrap this up. I'll post more updates as they become available. Have a great Friday! Peace.