The Final Scan

Mum (if you happen to ever read this), and anyone else opposed to finding out the gender of our baby before it is born is advised to look away now and return another day to another post.

For the rest of you, I will ramble a little now about the scan we had on Friday, - for 2 reasons, - firstly to use use up some space so the people mentioned above don't have their "surprise" spoiled and secondly because there is a fair bit to tell.

We arrived with good time before our appointment at 09.40 and were called in on time. The baby was wide awake and kicking around but the sonographer managed to get most of the measurements and details that he needed, the heart is fine, the limbs, the bladder, abdomen etc. Unfortunately the baby was laying with it's head in my pelvis, facing towards my back this made it difficult to get accurate measurements of the head or to see the face (to check for cleft palate). The sonographer tried wiggling and poking at the baby to encourage it to move around. The baby just kicked me some more and stayed put. The sonographer tried pushing the baby, I tried poking it, we tried talking to it, nothing would make it turn around - it was being very camera-shy. In the end the sonographer looked to see if there was another slot later in the day or next week, however everything was fully booked, so he suggested that I go for a walk, have something to drink and eat some chocolate (I have not eaten chocolate since before the baby was even conceived as I don't believe it is healthy for a growing baby - or anyone for that matter). Any way for "medical purposes" I ate some chocolate, drank nearly 750ml of water and we went for a brisk walk, I also called my manager to let her know that I would be a bit later in to work. Anyway after half an hour we went back in (the sonographer squeezed us in between others). Well the baby HAD NOT MOVED, - more poking ensued and the baby just ignored us. So I was sent for another walk and told to jump around etc. The baby STILL HAD NOT MOVED, so I was sent for another walk and the sonographer would try to talk to his colleague - it was midday by this point and I called my manager and asked if I could take the day as holiday since I still wasn't finished, - she said that was fine. So having done plenty of jumping and stretching etc at the forth attempt, the baby was STILL lying in the wrong position, in fact I suspect that had we been able to see it's face we would have seen it poking it's tongue out at us! The senior sonographer came in and poked at it some more (my stomach was quite sore after the ordeal) and she managed to just about get it to move enough to take final measurements and to see that it does not have cleft palate. We have one arm photo, one leg photo, one decent profile of the face and one very scary face photo - we can't quite figure out what we are looking at. We also have about 20 photos for my maternity file of the back, heart, and neck! By the way each time you go for a scan you have the option of getting copies of the photos it is £7 per session - I didn't add that to my baby costs list before, so I will now for this and last time £14 so far - plus parking, which hopefully was only £2. We tried to avoid paying parking by parking at the local supermarket - we did some shopping there anyway, however we realised that we would have to move the car when we reached the 3rd walk - you can only park there for 3 hours for free after that they will send you a £70 fine. - We were there for 3 hours 20 minutes - I really pray that we don't have to pay the fine - I will keep the food receipts just in case and hope they will be lenient.

OK without further ado, we are having a BOY!!!!! - Well what did you expect in our families? Clearly he is a very stubborn little boy!

Now I can start sewing cute baby boy clothes - because anyone who has ever looked for cute boy clothes, knows that they are very rare or cost a lot to buy. As a celebration I bought some little iron-on patches to put on to clothes that I make or plain things that we are given/buy. Another £4.60 for the 6-pack and £1.30 for the 2-pack. £5.90 total plus parking and scan photos total to add £21.90.

Cute or what?