Thursday, January 23, 2014

The 1st scan (Its a....Bean)

The 12 week wait was finally over! The appointment was booked for 9am, my hubby had scheduled the day off work, we were up early, showered, fed and ready to go.

We arrived early, filled out the relevant paperwork and took a seat. We scanned the other expectant mums in the waiting room (guessing how many weeks they would be judging by their size). Perused the posters on the walls with week by week size charts to see where we should be on the growth spectrum. Then waited as all the other patients were filed thru first. We could hear the ultrasound machine start up each time with that scratchy static sound, followed by a hollow echo and time stood still before the beating heart was located and sounded down the corridor. I was genuinely nervous, I really felt like they were going to scan my womb and find nothing, no heartbeat, no baby. Whether this was me overrating or just my bodies way of trying to prompt coping with the worst case scenario (if that be the case) I don't know. I guess the idea of growing a human inside you is almost so unbelievable... such a miracle, that my mind could hardly comprehend that it could be real.

After waiting for an hour past our scheduled appointment time we were ushered down the corridor into the dimly lit cosy ultrasound room. I undressed, robed up and had my belly lubed ready to go. Those few seconds as the ultrasound wand circled around searching for a sign of life seemed to take forever. I held my breath and waited... and then slowly a grainy blob-like bean came into view with a butterfly flutter of a heartbeat and tears filled my eyes. I leant over to hold my husband's hand and the Sonographer informed me to stay still, that it was hard to keep the view focussed when you moved and that we could hold hands afterwards (UMMMM kill-joy matron! We just made a modern day miracle here!! give me a teary moment to stroke my husbands hand!). The relevant measurements were taken, all seemed to be in working order and we were given a dvd copy plus some print outs to take home.

Any questions? she asked as we were wrapping up... "ummm if we wanted to know the sex, not saying we do, but if we did... could we find out now?". In her professional "matron-like" style she informed us that personally she preferred not to tell couples at this point as it was only a 70% chance of being correct and she would rather wait to be 100% correct at the 21 week scan. [This being said, most of my other friends who have asked at this first scan have been told and as far as I know have all been correct]. I always thought there was no way I would EVER find out what I was having. My whole life I imagined that I would want the surprise of finding out the sex to be the icing on the cake after the possibly traumatic birth experience. But after seeing that first scan I knew, I wanted to find out as soon as I could!


Profile view, it looks like our lil bean is smiling
(excuse the scratched image, I carried it around in my wallet for a few weeks before sticking it to the mirror in our bedroom)
Our little bean was hiding its face (my child, shy? surely not..)
So there it was, it was true, there was a small human growing inside me. As unbelievable as it was it was really happening. I kept looking at these snapshots all afternoon, studying the grainy blob-like features. 

That evening I skyped my parents (who live interstate) and waited until they were both in front of the screen to flash the scan photo over the video. Whoops and Yelps of excitement followed!! This little human was to be the first grandchild on both sides of our families which makes it even more exciting and special. I think my mum was just as shocked that I'd kept my mouth shut for 12 weeks as she was excited about the news!!

It was a relief to be past that first trimester milestone. It looked like another waiting game began until the 21 week scan when we could find out what we were having. But for now we were calling it "Bean". I loved Bean already...


No comments:

Post a Comment