moved: gusin08.wordpress.com

on monday the new kid and the perinatologist met each other for the first time. they seemed to hit it off: said kid proved to be quite photogenic

(see?)

and the doc pronounced everything just fine. normal. which is great.

the new kid has (despite shannon’s worries) four limbs and no tail. a beating heart, a working bladder, and a big ol’ abdomen. and possibly a bit of a shy streak — during the 4D part of the photoshoot ultrasound, the kid actually brought her hands around to cover her otherwise not-so-private parts. (not that they’re visible yet — the kid is still too young — but this cuts a striking contrast to mairin, who had no problems giving good old doctor hallman what he used to call “the money shot.”)

the photos have sent the nicknaming in a whole new (but still fruitless) direction. is the kid an eddie munster look-alike or what?

the new kid also has what appears, so far, to be a good looking and healthy placenta. it’s either anterior or fundal, or perhaps both, or somewhere between, but it is a) present and accounted for and b) not blocking the cervix. these are good things. (we’ll have to wait to pass judgment on the question of fibrin deposits, but we’re taking the good while the good comes our way.)

the new kid is also being kept company by the not-yet-vanished twin sac, which seemed to fascinate both the ultrasound tech and the doctor. so much so, in fact, that the doc took extra special 4D shots of a cross-section of the sac just to make sure it “was not in communication” with the new kid. (no communication my patootie. who’s to say the new kid isn’t going to come out speaking her own private amnio-language?) anyway — that’s the sac, down in the bottom left corner. trippy, ‘eh?

the new kid’s mama has a beautifully long and still-quite-obviously-closed cervix. this was the first time i’ve ever had an official u/s cervical check; i marked the occasion by panicking the whole time — is that funneling i see? holy cow! it’s only 2.5 cm? since i had no idea what i was seeing and even less of an idea how to interpret what i was seeing, i was wrong on both counts. no funneling. and it measures >4cm (closer to 4.5), which the doctor calls “upper normal.” he explained that over the next ten weeks (and 5 visits for peeks at it) we would likely see it shorten to somewhere around 3.5 cm as the baby adds pressure and weight. but everything’s ok, he said, until we hit 1.5. i know we’re only talking a few centimeters, but i feel like that’s a long way to go. and that makes me — dare i say it? — happy.

and speaking of having a long way to go: as i lay sleepless in bed this morning i realized that we are more than halfway to probable viability, and exactly halfway to viability with a pretty decent chance for good, maybe even normal, health. obviously we hope this kid gestates longer than 28 weeks, but just knowing that we are halfway to having a child who should be able to breathe on her own feels huge.

huge.

positively gigantic.

(that’s right, sing it with me: gigantic! GIGANTIC! a big big love! a big big love!)