Our 20 Week Ultrasound

Today was our 20 week ultrasound! And before you get your hopes up, no we did not find out what we are having! We didn't find out with Marley and we want this baby to be a surprise also. I have been having bad dreams that we accidentally found out, or even worse I felt like I saw but couldn't really tell. But luckily, the ultrasound tech didn't even look, so there wasn't a chance of us finding out. And when we looked at the baby's legs, they were crossed! So, this baby was cooperative in the way we wanted him or her to be and is keeping it a secret!

She told me that my placenta is right in the front, so that might be why I haven't felt a whole lot of movement. I felt the first flutters around 14 weeks, but it hadn't gotten very consistent yet. I could only feel it when I was resting and really concentrating on feeling it. However, the past two days I have felt some really big movements, all over the place! And i don't have to be concentrating to feel it. Asa has tried to feel it, but the baby hasn't really cooperated yet. Hopefully it will before he leaves! With all the movement I have been feeling the past few days, I can't imagine what it would be like if my placenta were in a different place!

The ultrasound was amazing. I thought Marley's 20 week scan was impressive, but this one was even better. The baby moved the whole time, swallowed, kicked, waved it's hands around, and gave us some awesome shots. We saw toes and fingers, which were all there, and we saw a cute little nose just like Marley's. We didn't get to find out how big the baby was, but the heartbeat was 157 beats per minute. But if you think that might tell whether we are having a boy or girl, just know that every other time we have gotten a reading, the heart was beating in the 130s per minute. So, you never know!

At one point, she got a shot of the baby where we were looking straight at it's eye. We could see the circle that was the eye socket, then a smaller gray circle, and then another even smaller dark circle inside (kind of like a bull's eye). The ultrasound tech told us we were seeing our baby's eye and we could see it moving back and forth! It was amazing! I had no idea that was something you could see on an ultrasound!

We didn't walk away with really great pictures, so I wish we had recorded the actual ultrasound. But it was awesome, and not something I will forget. I am so glad Asa got to be here for it, and he has informed me that he is taking all of the ultrasound pictures with him when he deploys! He will miss so much of this pregnancy and the baby's first eight months, so I am very happy he got to see it today. I think it really helped him realize this is really happening!