20-Week Ultrasound

My 20-week ultrasound was last week and the baby is healthy. Despite my rapidly-growing stomach, I often have a feeling that an alien growth form has taken over my body and not that a baby is growing inside of me (I felt this way when pregnant with Oliver too). So the ultrasound provided me not only the reassurance that the pregnancy is going well, but also a reminder that something truly miraculous is happening inside there.

The biggest letdown is that after the anticipation of the 20-week ultrasound for the rare opporunity for a glimpse of your baby, the quality of the "pictures" was underwhelming. When I was pregnant with Oliver, I had an ultrasound around six weeks, when he was so small that the ultrasound technician had to show me where to look, then at 11 or 12 weeks, when I could actually tell that was a baby up on the screen and lastly around 20 weeks, when the technician switched the monitor to 4-D and oh my gosh, that's my baby!. Those images blew me away. This time around, not only was there no 4-D, but the images from the anatomy scan appeared rather grainy, and frankly, just weren't that exciting to look at.

We did find out the sex of the baby, which, of course, was exciting. Surpisingly, I've been totally cool with finding out before the birth and Chris and I are both happy and excited. Our lips are sealed though. You can try pumping Oliver for information, but given that he's just learning to master the word, "Hi!" I say, good luck with that!