my first prenatal appointment.

Yesterday Nathan and I went to our first appointment. How exciting!!! We get to see the baby and Nathan gets to see it for the first time. I don't know why but I was nervous going. It could have just been all the questions I was prepared to ask, and all the testing that would take place.

After changing it to my spiffy robe on, we waited for my nurse practitioner to come in and take the ultrasound. And as expected, there was a very healthy little baby inside. The heart beat looked like fluttering. Nathan said to the nurse, "I expected the heart beat to be as fast as a gerbil's heart." We just laughed at his comment, but I loved how much of a learning experience it would be for the both of us. Here is the baby's ultrasound debut:

We must have sat in the dark room looking at our baby for about 10 minutes. The nurse was gracious and patient in answering all of our questions. She said that the baby is now 8 weeks and 2 days (that was yesterday) and the due date is March 15, 2008! Nothing to her indicated any problems at all, which eased my mind. We even got to see the baby's blood flow moving, heartbeat fluttering and it even moved a few times!

After that, she went over all of our optional testing later on down the pregnancy. let's just say it's enough to cause any mother-to-be anxiety. One optional test could give a false positive results. Nooo thank you! I'd rather take a test with 99.9% accuracy thankyouverymuch! She also gave us tons of pamphlets to look at and read over. And set up my next appointments one being the one we find out which sex it will be!

Soon after the wad of paper we need to read through, the nurse checked my insides to make sure everything looked good and it did...whew! Then it was on to donating 4 vials of blood for testing. All in all it was about a 2 hour appointment. Nathan and I were elated to see our little baby alive and very well. It's all still surreal to the both of us, but I'm sure it won't take long for reality to set in.

Stats:
Age of fetus: 8 weeks, 3 days (today)
What's going on this month: That tiny bulge in your child's abdomen is its liver. Little bumps and swells and creases could find themselves turning into ears, a pituitary gland, or the cerebellum. Hand and foot plates appear in the arm and leg paddles. Fingers and toes will develop next. The eyes, which are formed from brain tissue, complete their muscle development and show pigment in the retinas.
Baby's Size: Raspberry
Mood: Happy
Cravings: A steak and Cheese sub w/ hot peppers
Energy: Low
Morning Sickness: NONE!!!