Thursday, October 9, 2014

10.9.14 - The big ultrasound!

Today, finally, after weeks of counting down the days, we went to get the ultrasound to learn gender. Jack took half a day off work so he could go with me.

Our ultrasound tech was very sweet. Her name was Mary and she looked to be maybe a couple years older than us. She told me she has two daughters, both 2 and under, and she was clearly very happy about it. While she conducted the ultrasound she and I talked about women being unsure whether they wanted children because they still want to travel or have other childless adventures. The tech and I agreed having kids was like trading one type of adventure for another. She used the word "blessed" a lot, and she talked a lot about how cute our baby looked on the screen. She's clearly made for her job.

Anyway, I was laying down at an angle to where it was kind of hard for me to see the screen. Jack could stand in line of sight of the screen, and I could kind of see it if I tilted my head. Mary tried to tilt the screen toward me too, and it was enough. The whole process took probably about 30 minutes but I was glad it took so long so we could see the baby so much. Mary examined the baby's skull, brain, stomach, heart, arms, and legs. We could see the baby has proportionally long toes like mine. :) Throughout the ultrasound we could see ribs and fingers, we could see the baby move around - went from breach to a 180 in the time it took. At one point the baby hiccuped and I could feel it inside me and see it on the ultrasound at the same time, it was awesome! Jack kept patting my knee and we kept beaming at each other - it was a very sweet experience.

Finally Mary checked the gender, and we learned we're having a baby girl! So now I can talk about her as a "her" and a "she" and as Clara. We got a great ultrasound shot as Clara was moving her arm toward her face - I thought she looked like she was doing the Thinker pose:


As soon as we left the medical center, Jack called his parents to tell the good news, and I sent out a text to the rest of our immediate families that read "We're having a daughter. :-) Clara Lynn Jackson." The text responses were:

Dad: "Ha! Ha! That's so great. It's best to start with girls."
Jill: "Aww, Clara!"
Mom: "EEEEEEEE!!!! So excited for my little Clara Lynn!!!!"
Julie: "GAAAAAAAAH!!"
Denny: "OMG YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY x 999999999999999999999999999999.1"
Ellen: "That makes me really happy, girl should be the oldest :)"
Everett: "Good job"
Lydia: "Aw!! Fantastic news!!! So excited!"
Katie: "Yay! I'm so excited for you guys!"
Aaron: "Congratufreakinlations"

Jack's parents were also very happy about it. When we got home I scanned the ultrasound and posted a general announcement on FB, and then got to enjoy the FB likes and congrats and comments throughout pretty much the rest of the day. Examples:


Overall it was a wonderful day with wonderful news. We are both so happy and excited to meet our baby girl!

No comments:

Post a Comment