On Friday I had my 20 week (& 5 days) ultrasound. This one was the long one, the full anatomy scan.
I've had the same tech for several of my ultrasounds so she remembers me and I feel very comfortable around her. She started by measuring a lot of bones and areas - the femur and humerus were the important ones. They help determine how long the babies are and if they are developing at the right rate. She took circumferences of their heads and bellies and counted their fingers and toes. Then she looked at their hearts - do they have four chambers? Is the blood supply going in and out as it should? Yes, and yes. Colors filled the screen to show the blood flow through the heart, swirls of blue and red. I wasn't really sure what I was looking at but she said "that's good" so I'll take her at her word.
My friend, Katherine, asked me what their hearts look like. The best description I could come up with is that they look like the scary trees in the forest that come to life and chase after you in cartoons (or maybe my nightmares?) with jagged edges where roots would be and over exaggerated cavities where eyes and a mouth would be. Except there are four cavities and they are all pumping in-out-in-out-in-out to the same rhythm. 136 & 138 beats per minute to be exact.
She showed us where their kidneys and bladders are. Small flecks on the screen. She checked the umbilical chords. More colors filled the screen to check the flow of nutrients from me to them. She checked out their spines and where the spine connects to the neck. She measured the depth of the tissue on the back of the neck and then looked at their brains. Their brains look like tiny little brains already, all squiggly squishy lines. They are still very skeletal to look at, almost reptilian.
I started scrapbook pages of all the ultrasound pictures so I have them in one place. Here we have the profile of one of them. She is sucking her thumb already. Then we have baby hands and baby feets. When the tech was trying to convince one of the girls to come out from where she had buried her head in my hip bone she brought her hands up as if to yawn. They opened and then closed into tight little fists before disappearing out of view of the probe. Those little hands had me a little teary.
Baby A's head is in my right hip with her feet stretching all the way across my stomach to my other hip. Baby B's head is near my rib cage on the left with her feet stretching all the way across the other side and landing somewhere over Baby A's head. Maybe Baby A is buried in my hip bone because she hates feet like her momma and is trying to get as far away from her sister's feet as possible.
Below is another profile shot, the pictures taken of the heart region (not much to see) with the sound waves of their heartbeats below and then some face pictures - like I said, they are still very skeletal looking. After all the important stuff had been measured and looked at she checked to make sure they are both girls (yup, still girls) and then checked the placenta walls, the amniotic fluid sacs and the length of my cervix. The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes.
One of the last things she did was weigh them. According to my baby apps they should have weighed between 10 and 12 ounces at this stage. They were already 13 and 14 ounces which was a relief. I keep thinking because there are two of them that they will have to be small, but so far that has proven not to be the case. They are the size of large bananas now!
After she printed out all the pictures and I cleaned the goop off of myself we went to an examination room to meet with my doctor. He said everything looked good and confirmed once again that he's fine with me flying to Florida at 25 weeks.
The tech gave us two gift boxes, Each had pink balloons (for the gender reveal party we didn't have), a pink onesie, a magnetic hospital bag check list and a door hanger that we will definitely be using at the hospital in a couple months! I wasn't expecting anything from them so this was a pleasant surprise. The checklist is on my magnet board at home. In a couple months I'll need to get my grab bag ready to go! I'm 21 weeks, 2 days now. Not sure where the time has gone.
I've had the same tech for several of my ultrasounds so she remembers me and I feel very comfortable around her. She started by measuring a lot of bones and areas - the femur and humerus were the important ones. They help determine how long the babies are and if they are developing at the right rate. She took circumferences of their heads and bellies and counted their fingers and toes. Then she looked at their hearts - do they have four chambers? Is the blood supply going in and out as it should? Yes, and yes. Colors filled the screen to show the blood flow through the heart, swirls of blue and red. I wasn't really sure what I was looking at but she said "that's good" so I'll take her at her word.
My friend, Katherine, asked me what their hearts look like. The best description I could come up with is that they look like the scary trees in the forest that come to life and chase after you in cartoons (or maybe my nightmares?) with jagged edges where roots would be and over exaggerated cavities where eyes and a mouth would be. Except there are four cavities and they are all pumping in-out-in-out-in-out to the same rhythm. 136 & 138 beats per minute to be exact.
She showed us where their kidneys and bladders are. Small flecks on the screen. She checked the umbilical chords. More colors filled the screen to check the flow of nutrients from me to them. She checked out their spines and where the spine connects to the neck. She measured the depth of the tissue on the back of the neck and then looked at their brains. Their brains look like tiny little brains already, all squiggly squishy lines. They are still very skeletal to look at, almost reptilian.
I started scrapbook pages of all the ultrasound pictures so I have them in one place. Here we have the profile of one of them. She is sucking her thumb already. Then we have baby hands and baby feets. When the tech was trying to convince one of the girls to come out from where she had buried her head in my hip bone she brought her hands up as if to yawn. They opened and then closed into tight little fists before disappearing out of view of the probe. Those little hands had me a little teary.
Baby A's head is in my right hip with her feet stretching all the way across my stomach to my other hip. Baby B's head is near my rib cage on the left with her feet stretching all the way across the other side and landing somewhere over Baby A's head. Maybe Baby A is buried in my hip bone because she hates feet like her momma and is trying to get as far away from her sister's feet as possible.
Below is another profile shot, the pictures taken of the heart region (not much to see) with the sound waves of their heartbeats below and then some face pictures - like I said, they are still very skeletal looking. After all the important stuff had been measured and looked at she checked to make sure they are both girls (yup, still girls) and then checked the placenta walls, the amniotic fluid sacs and the length of my cervix. The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes.
One of the last things she did was weigh them. According to my baby apps they should have weighed between 10 and 12 ounces at this stage. They were already 13 and 14 ounces which was a relief. I keep thinking because there are two of them that they will have to be small, but so far that has proven not to be the case. They are the size of large bananas now!
After she printed out all the pictures and I cleaned the goop off of myself we went to an examination room to meet with my doctor. He said everything looked good and confirmed once again that he's fine with me flying to Florida at 25 weeks.
The tech gave us two gift boxes, Each had pink balloons (for the gender reveal party we didn't have), a pink onesie, a magnetic hospital bag check list and a door hanger that we will definitely be using at the hospital in a couple months! I wasn't expecting anything from them so this was a pleasant surprise. The checklist is on my magnet board at home. In a couple months I'll need to get my grab bag ready to go! I'm 21 weeks, 2 days now. Not sure where the time has gone.
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