Wild Weekend
The past two days have been chock full of activity. Throughout most of the pregnancy so far, I’ve just had no energy to do anything, and when weekends rolled around and Mark had a couple days off, the poor boy was forced to simply spend them cooped up in the house with his exhausted girlfriend.
But lately, I’ve been finding energy from somewhere and have spent most of the last few weekends out and about. It’s nice, and I enjoy it. I’m trying to make the most of the time before the baby comes, as I realise that once he’s here, we’re going to have a much more difficult time getting out and about. This is our last family “grown up” time for a long while. We must enjoy it as we will!
Saturday we booked in to a local private scan centre in Windsor to have a 4D sonogram! I was SO very excited, and Mark found us a deal for a DVD recording + several 3D pictures at a good price. Our appointment was booked for 1:05, and the letter they sent us advised me to arrive 15 - 20 minutes early and with a full bladder. So off we went, and we arrived at the clinic at 12:40 PM. The receptionist told me at the start that the sonographer was running around 15 minutes late, so even though I was there 25 minutes early, I’d probably be waiting for at least 40 minutes before being seen. Annoying, but worth it if it meant seeing my little boy.
An hour later, and we still hadn’t been called. I started to get more than a little bit peeved. Originally we’d had plans for this day, including a house full of guests, but at the last minute we’d reorganised our schedule… but what if we hadn’t? The whole appointment was meant to take 45 minutes, and here we were this late in the day without having even started! It was 2:10 before we were finally called in.
The ultrasound tech used SO much gel on my tummy that my shirt and trousers were sodden by the time we were done. It was crazy! But in the excitement, I didn’t really care. She started by trying to get a good look at the face, but we were struck with a problem straight away. Baby had his face pressed RIGHT up against my placenta! As such, we were having trouble getting a good image. She changed tack and decided to focus on the feet a bit. The first two minutes of the DVD are just close-ups of baby legs!
Playing it smart, the tech decided to get all the measurements done and come back to the face later. She measured the baby’s head, abdomen and femur (all normal, though slightly on the small side) and his weight (about 2.5 lbs). His heart was strong, and all was well. But unfortunately after 20 minutes on the table, and a small break where I laid on each side for a few minutes and Mark played Pearl Jam through the Iphone, the tech suggested we go back to the waiting room and try again in a little bit.
By this point, though, I was BURSTING for a wee, and I had to run to the toilet to relieve myself.
It was about half an hour before we were called back, and up to the table I went. Again, mass amounts of gel were applied, but within seconds, we could see things were even worse. The baby had rolled over and was now facing backward! Though we had a lovely view of his spinal column, it was clear that he was not cooperating. So the lady asked us how much time we had. With no concrete plans in place, we admitted we could stick around, so she suggested going off for some lunch and coming back in 40 minutes or so.
So together we took a walk into the town and grabbed a bite to eat. I was hopeful that the long walk and a bit of fast food (with cookie!) would persuade the baby to play ball.
When we got back and were called in, the baby was in the right position, but the placenta was still a problem. We just had to concede defeat and realise that we weren’t going to get a clear image of his face. But the footage we got was still pretty amazing. There are tiny fragments of footage where his features settle for a split second and you can see that he looks just like his daddy. He is beautiful and strong.
All in all, we were at the clinic for over four hours and came away with around 15 minutes of footage, most of which is fairly unimpressive. But the thrill of watching my son, as though through a strangely distorted window, was something I can never really describe. My boy was bouncing and yawning, kicking and sleeping, rolling and hiccuping in my bursting belly.
The single best moment for me (which was captured on DVD) is knowing that even though his features favour his father, he seems to have picked up one very unique feature from his mama bear. Little boy has quite the little tongue!
Hehe.
For the record, I’m now on my fifth watching of the DVD, having seen it first hand, watched it with Mark at home, shown it to our neighbour, debuted it to a room full of friends on Sunday, and sneaking off to watch it late in the night.
Bliss.
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Sunday was lovely, as well. A while back, Ross suggested that as our friend Iain (a Scotsman) and his fiance Patrice (another American) are living in the area now, it might be nice for all of us to get together and have our own little Thanksgiving. Always one to volunteer for big cooking sessions and playing the hostess, I jumped at the chance and offered to cook up a Turkey with all the trimmings. I even did a personal veggie roast for Iain, as he doesn’t eat meat.
Mark and Me
There were six of us in total, including Mark, me and our neighbour, Pat. The menu was standard fare:
Turkey
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Candied Yams
7-Up Salad (something only my family seems to have heard of!)
Cranberry Sauce
Sprouts (with chestnuts and onion)
Baked beans
Carrots, Peas and Broccoli
Bread Sauce
Gravy
Baked bread rolls
and pumpkin pie and cheesecake for dessert. Everything was homemade from scratch, so it was quite an undertaking!
Me and my neighbour, Pat
My ex-husband, Ross
Patrice and Iain (carving the turkey)
Many went back for seconds/thirds, and I think we were all stuffed to the brim by the end.
Ross also brought over loads of wine (some Schloer for the preggo lady, of course), which was happily imbibed, and Patrice brought loads of candy, frosting and fixings for everyone to make their own gingerbread houses. Of course, she didn’t actually bring any gingerbread. Instead, she brought packs of wafers!
Mark’s Effort
Patrice’s Gnome Shed
Iain’s Delectable Delight
Ross’s Gummy Contribution
It was great fun, and I couldn’t have asked for a better time with friends.
Of course, it was slightly scary when I returned from the kitchen after dinner to find that all the men had removed their trousers and were sitting around in boxer shorts…
No one in this picture is wearing pants!
It totally made up for the lousy day I had Thursday.
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And in the biggest news of the weekend, Mark and I have had to rethink our stance on what we name the baby. Due to my father’s behaviour, we decided (well, mostly *I* decided) that it was going to be impossible to name the baby Douglas, even as a middle name. I can’t in all good conscience name my son for someone who has been so unsupportive and plain nasty during the pregnancy. Especially as he obviously objects so strongly to the entire situation.
What message would that send?
Of course, we still wanted to keep the name David, as that was Mark’s dad’s name, and it’s important to honour his memory.
After some brainstorming, I fell in love with the name Dexter, and I suggested David Dexter Reed as the potential new name. Mark was a sweetheart about it and agreed with me (especially as he saw how much I LOVED the name). But he suggested we change it around to Dexter David.
So that’s what we’ve done.
Little Dex will hopefully love his name as much as I/we do, and all the unpleasantness with my family can be put behind us once and for all.
Happy days are here again!
This post originated at A Mother Thing (http://www.amotherthing.com). If you want to leave a comment, please do so here: http://www.amotherthing.com/2010/11/wild-weekend/#comments