Going to our previous appointment at 16 weeks, we had no idea if everything was still ok. We especially started to inwardly freak out when the nurse couldn't find Baby's heartbeat for a solid 2 minutes. I realize that doesn't sound like a long time, but when you are literally searching for LIFE in a not so large area, 2 minutes allows enough time for your mind to go all sorts of bad directions.

For this appointment though, I at least had the kicks and wiggles of Baby (or as Gerard says, the Kung-Foo fighting) to confirm there was indeed LIFE happening. We just didn't know if things were forming well and this appointment would tell us a lot in that department. This is how our appointment started:

A great profile, but boy, did Baby make the tech work hard from there on out! In true Williams style, Baby was working on it's flip turns the entire time I was on the table. Which, originally, should've been 45 minutes, but ended up being a whopping 75! Think of it as the best 75 minute TV show you've ever watched. And yes, that includes Downton Abby. ;) Our first tech was a student who was weeks away from graduating and the full-time tech was watching the print-outs from another room. The student's first comment was how beautiful Baby's heart was. (And that was when mine melted.)

The full-time tech came in shortly afterwards and also commented how beautiful Baby's heart was. She proceeded to go for shots of the spine and other appendages. Intermittently, she'd go looking to see if Baby was a He or She. Baby's flip turn form was stellar the entire time, with its legs closed and feet above the head. (In true "Gerard flexibility" fashion as well.) So the tech would go from searching to measuring another body part. Rinse-repeat. Rinse-repeat.

At several points in that 75 minutes, I'd look at the tech and try to read her face. She was so focused, she'd look concerned, especially when she was looking at the spine. I asked her a few times if everything was ok and she'd smile and say, "Yup, this is my focus face. This Peanut is moving around so much, I have to be quick to click for the photo. Spine looks fantastic!" I'll admit, this kinda looks like an underwater sea-creature.

Finally, after the poor gal was sweating bullets in that stuffy room, after sitting rigid with attention on a probably uncomfortable chair, and pregnant herself, the tech victoriously exclaimed, "GOT IT!" The image froze on the screen above us and I asked, "Is that the turtle I was told to look for for a boy?"

"Nope, that's the hamburger!" And there was much rejoicing. I'll follow my DAUGHTER'S lead and respect her modesty that she so stubbornly protected for over an hour and not show that revealing image, but you look at her profile a little differently now. Knowing it's a girl, don't you? :)

There are moments when it sinks in that a little girl will be joining us....When we found out I was pregnant, we celebrated by going out to our favorite Chinese restaurant. We repeated the tradition the day we found out we're having a girl and as Gerard prayed over our meal and said, "Thank you for HER...." I had an image of a little girl toddling across our kitchen floor and started to cry. Gerard admitted to having a mental image of a baby with a little flower headband on. *sigh*

Now for some funnies:

1. I've walked into a room or walked in a direction in our house and instantly not remembered why I was facing that way nor what I was going to go do. This has happened more times than I can count. And when I do it at work, my colleagues are being oh-so-patient with me.

2. I've put freezer items back in the fridge, but in the non-freezer side multiple times. Thankfully, I reopen the fridge moments later to realize my mistake. Come to think of it, I'm seeing the inside of our fridge a lot these days.

3. When entering the math problem 14-7 into my phone's calculator, the number 7 stayed on the screen. Don't ask why I was entering such a simple math problem into a calculator because I don't remember, but more importantly, I thought my calculator was broken and couldn't figure out why the 7 was still there! Gerard (who got a 5 on his AP Calculus exam) calmly explained that 14-7=7.

4. While putting dishes in the dishwasher several weeks ago, I noticed we were out of dish detergent. I remember wanting to write that down for our grocery list, but I never got around to it. Somehow, a week or so later, I went to the cupboard to get the detergent and it was magically there again! "How'd that get there?" I asked Gerard. He replied, "I went and bought some?" oh, of course. I think that was when I really came out of my first trimester fatigue that lasted longer than my first trimester. :)

Baby Krupke: 21 weeks