18 Week Ultrasound (Tomorrow Is Another Day...)

After a highly disappointing experience with my 15 week ultrasound, I had braced myself for the one at 18 weeks to be just as much of a let down--little did I know, it was the big anatomy scan! The anatomy scan is technically a thorough check of all of the baby's measurements and organ functions, but for the majority of pregnant woman it really means one thing: SEX REVEAL!
Of course, as we know from my previous post, we got the incredible news that I'm carrying two little ladies around in my ever expanding abdominal region. We also had the joy of spending an hour and a half staring at the screen as the ultrasound tech measured the heart, the kidneys, the brain, all of the limbs, and we even got to see where the blood flows in and out of the heart with a pretty nifty color coded doppler. It was absolutely amazing, and exactly what I needed after spending the previous appointment doing crunches just trying to catch a brief glimpse of baby.

The tech spent about 45 minutes on each girl, and took frillions of photos for her records, printing out almost 40 for us to take home. We got detailed snapshots of little feet, hands, heads, arms, legs--my ultrasound photo album is now literally overflowing, and we've got two more of these big ultrasounds coming up over the next two months!
Baby A was on her best behavior for us once more, allowing lots of amazing shots of her little face and body, and even a pretty spectacular 3d photo of her face--especially considering how difficult it can be to get cute pictures this early in their development. At 17 weeks and 6 days, she was measuring at 19 weeks and had a beautiful strong heartbeat of 148 bpm. My bump has been growing pretty rapidly lately, and it thrills me to know that it means the girls are growing big and strong.

The most disconcerting discovery of the day was that Baby B is a terrifying demon. It's a shame, but you can't argue with the photographic evidence provided on the bottom left... check out that menacing monster face to the left of her hand!

Baby B spent most of her time in the limelight hiding behind her hands. It didn't make for the best pictures of her face, but it was still kind of adorable. I guess she just doesn't want the big reveal until she actually enters the world--she's always been the shy one during ultrasounds! She measured at 18 weeks and 6 days, so just a teeny bit smaller than her sister, and had a heartbeat of 143 bpm.

But, continuing with our streak of bizarre appointments at this hospital, when the ultrasound tech went to get our doctor, we discovered that she had been rushed to a room and was on IVs for fluid loss after becoming violently ill while watching our ultrasound from her office. Sooooo, we didn't get to meet with a doctor. However, our tech was extremely experienced with 20 years of ultrasounding under her belt, and she assured us off the record that everything looked great to her and we'd be meeting with the new high risk doctor at our next appointment on July 18th.

So, we've only got about 2 1/2 weeks to go before our next peek at our girls, and name discussions and negotiations are currently underway. I can't believe we're almost halfway there!