Week 15 ultrasound

I went in for my monthly prenatal appointment today and was pleasantly surprised when the student intern nurse practioner offered to do a quick "peek" by sonogram of the baby. They have these little portable sonograms in the exam rooms, and that is what she used, rather than the large one the ultrasound technician used last time.

So I got to see the little baby. His head (pictured on the right on screen) is actually to the left of and below my belly button, his feet to the right. He was lying peacefully sidweways. (I use "he" not "it" when talking about the baby, but don't know if the baby is a boy or girl.) She showed me his spine, so his bones are definitely forming now. We could see the heartbeat, but more faintly since this ultrasound is from above, on top of my belly, not from inside. I saw the face, but that wasn't too clear either. The little toes were touching each other, so baby looks like he is pigeon-toed like me!

I asked her if we could use a doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. She pulled out what looks like a little hand held radio (you can Google "stork radio" to see what it looks like) and squirted more goo on my pelvis. We heard my heartbeat, which is the echo of the flow of blood as it rushes through the arteries. It took some time for her to locate the baby's heartbeat ("well at least we saw it beating a minute ago, so we don't need to panic" she said lightly). She had to push down hard to locate it. It was so wonderful to hear for the first time! It is just so neat to hear something from the baby, not just see the pictures.

I lost a little weight from last time, but I am up and down every day. Tuesday, I weighed two-and-a-half more pounds than I do today. And today I weigh just four-and-a-half pounds more than the day we found out I was pregnant. This is all good. (You tend to gain weight if you don't drink enough water, because your body starts to retain it, and you bloat!! I'm not always good about drinking my 60 or 80 ounces.)

I'm also religiously using something called "BioOil" on my torso to help prevent stretch marks. If it helps even a little bit, that is good enough. So far, I have heard only one physical benefit to becoming pregnant after 40 years: older women don't get as many stretch marks as younger women!

My next OB appointment is July 10th, at 20 weeks, since I will be out of town and couldn't make an earlier appointment. But the main nurse practioner said that is good, they can see more developed at that time, anyway.