20 week ultrasound!

The 20 week ultrasound was really fun! The technician was extremely respectful of our wishes to not know the gender- she said only about 5% of her patients request to not know, and she thinks it is "more fun" for the parents. Great! She even left it off the doctor's forms, so that means that even our OB doesn't know.



(that is the umbilical cord, by the way -don't get all excited.)

The baby sucked its thumb for a good part of the ultrasound (and is doing so in this image), which I was completely entertained by. It also kicked and squirmed, which was fun to watch. I learned that I have an anterior placenta- which after some quick googling explains why I seem to only feel kicks on my upper left side. I saw that our baby is head down, face up, and kinda tilted (so that if I was a clock, it would be feet at 2 o'clock, head at 8 o'clock). When it kicks towards my belly button, the feeties smack my squishy, nerve-free, placenta and I can't feel it. When it kicks up or pushes up, I feel it because it is pressing on just my muscles and the underside of my left ribs. After about three to four weeks of wondering why I only really could feel firm movements in the left upper part of my belly, this was quite reassuring! Once its arms are more powerful, and once it gets bigger, I should start feeling it all over the place.

One funny thing we learned at the ultrasound is our baby is really, really long for
its age. Almost two weeks too long! Long legs, long torso. The OB says this doesn't affect our due date, but it might end up being a rather tall baby. So what
I'm guessing this means is I should not buy too much in Newborn size, and stick to 0-3m and bigger instead. My sister's baby was also quite long for gestational age when she was measured at 20 weeks, so I suspect this is a family trait.

We also learned all sorts of "doesn't haves." Doesn't have a cleft palate! Doesn't have an umbilical defect! Doesn't have any skull defects! Doesn't have any
spinal defects! And then some "does haves..." has two kidneys, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 4 chambers in the heart, full bladder, good swallowing behavior, good heart
rate. And my favorite- cute little feet! I got a printout of the cute little feet that I just love.

You can see that the feet, now, are about the size of the entire leg in that first ultrasound. Baby growth is pretty amazing.