Baby Jeanne

So we went this week for an ultrasound at Virginia College. I am loving all of these opportunities for free ultrasounds! My doctor's office does 2 ultrasounds if there aren't complications, so I guess it's a blessing that we only get 2 legit ultrasounds, but I still like taking peeks at our little one.

We had our first legit ultrasound at 6 weeks. She was nothing more than a grain of rice with a heartbeat, so I don't think that should count (and definitely isn't worth the effort of posting pictures). Then Mom was able to get us an ultrasound at 12 weeks and again at 16 weeks, although we weren't able to get pictures. Our second legit ultrasound was at 18 weeks, which was our anatomy scan and gender ultrasound. This is where we found out we were going to have a Jeanne Marie and not a John Michael. Here is a cute prolife shot from that ultrasound. Everything was perfect in the anatomy scan, which was a HUGE praise!



Then at 25 weeks we had the opportunity to go to the ultrasound school in Montgomery to serve as guinea pigs for their students. It was such a tough job, let me tell you :) I really enjoyed this experience because we were able to learn a lot more about ultrasounds and the baby's anatomy since the instructor was explaining it to the students during the scan. They also loved me and little Jeanne because it turns out that she's breech (EEK). They'd not had a breech baby yet, so it let them practice with one. I guess this little girl is just going to be stubborn. She was head down at 16 and 18 weeks, but now when it's closer to delivery time, she's decided to flip and be booty down. There's still plenty of time for her to flip, though, so we'll just keep praying! At the beginning of the ultrasound, she was sucking her thumb, which was so precious to watch (I guess we're going to have a paci baby) and she had her legs crossed at the ankles. Unfortunately, when it came time to photograph, her daddy's side came out and she got a little stubborn (watch out Molly), and wouldn't let the tech get a profile shot, so all we got were creepy alien face shots like below.



So that leads us up to this week's 27 week ultrasound at Virginia College. I was really hoping she would have flipped in the past 2 weeks, just to ease my mind, but of course she hadn't (I really didn't think she had because I'm still getting a lot of pressure in my rib cage and kicks to my nether regions). It turns out that she's actually not far from a transverse position (UGH...that's a c-section FOR SURE). Basically her head is in the upper left quadrant of my uterus facing down, her booty in the lower right, and her legs curled into her chest - she's pretty much diagonal (at the last ultrasound she was pretty much straight up and down and she was facing the opposite direction, so maybe she's in the process of flipping?). Either way, I know I shouldn't worry since they can flip all the way up until delivery. Besides, I'd rather have pressure to the ribs than to the bladder. The big plus that came from this scan was that they had to look at my cervix in detail and they found that it's completely closed and perfect thickness. Yay! As excited as I am to meet her, I am not ready for her yet...she needs to bake for just a little bit longer (as in 10 weeks please). Again (sorry Molly) no cooperation for a profile shot, but at least the face shot doesn't look as much like an alien.



They also got a cute picture of her leg. She gets those nice legs from her daddy :)



Another interesting note is that she's measuring increasingly ahead at each ultrasound. This week all of her measurements were at least 1 week ahead and at my last doctor's visit I was measuring a week ahead. Of course all of this is fine by me if that means she'll be ready to enter the world 1 week ahead (head first of course - flip little one, flip!) :)