"Oh $hit, you're really pregnant"

This is it, time to meet our baby. We sat in that waiting room for what seemed like FOREVER. We were both terrified and anxious. I had NO prenatal care. I didn't take any prenatal vitamins. I ate sushi, over easy eggs, stinky cheese and lunch meat. I drank beer and smoked cigarettes. I went under general anesthesia, twice. I took pain pills post surgery. I had x-rays and an MRI. I did literally everything you are NOT supposed to do while pregnant. I don't think I could have prayed any harder than I did in the five weeks I knew I was pregnant.

For me, my pregnancy was already very real. Even though I still didn't feel pregnant, I had heard the heartbeat, I had seen what I think was a head on the ultrasound. Remember, "change the channel"? I only needed to know if my baby was OK. All my family needed to know was if we were having a boy or a girl because clearly that's more important than the health of my child. I think for Joel, he needed to see the baby on the monitor to know it was real. I think part of him still didn't believe me.

The whole time we sat in the waiting room I felt like everyone was staring at me. Techs and assistants would come up to the reception desk to call back patients or hand over a chart, and they would whisper to each other and look at me. I felt like screaming, "I'm right here, feel free to ask!". Finally they called us back. OK, this is it. The tech looked at my chart, looked at me, and said "are you sure you're pregnant?". No lady, I just enjoy driving downtown, finding and paying for street parking, walking blocks to appointments in the hot ass July weather and being subjected to multiple tests and scans. Yes I'm sure I'm pregnant. That question was already getting old and I've only been pregnant for two days.

I lay on the table, pull up my shirt to reveal my relatively flat yet slightly chubby belly. The tech says "Lets see how far along you really are". The moment of truth. She squirts the freezing cold gel onto my belly and we begin. The first thing we hear is the heartbeat. I look down at Joel, who is at my feet, and his eyes are welling up with tears. That was his "holy shit" moment. It was written all over his face. Yes dear, I'm actually pregnant. The tech starts pointing out all of the baby's anatomy. There is a head, two arms, two legs. There's a heart, liver, kidneys, brain, and they all look to be the right size and in the right place. I think in ultrasound school they must teach you to not show much emotion on your face. I couldn't read this woman to save my life. I kept asking "whats that?", "is that normal?". At one point I literally asked her to "change her face" when I thought she saw something wrong on the monitor. Turns out she was just in disbelief that I was hiding a four to five-ish pound baby in my belly.

THANK GOD my baby has ALL its limbs and organs. I start to cry. I cried so hard she had to stop the ultrasound for a moment because my sobbing was moving my belly too much. I started sweating got lightheaded to the point I thought I was going to pass out. They only thing that calmed me down was Joel. He was rubbing my leg and holding my hand as tears streamed down his face. I knew this guy was in it for the long haul. The tech measures the head and announces, "I can't believe it, but you have healthy 35 week old fetus due on August 4th". Relief. For the first time since finding out I was pregnant I felt like I could breathe. I didn't break our baby. Of course you can't know everything from having an ultrasound, but you can find out A LOT. And according to everything she could see, hear and measure, everything was perfectly normal.

I ask her if she can see the sex of the baby. She jams the ultrasound wand into my belly, twisting and turning it to try and get a look at the downstairs of the baby to no avail. Usually, women who know they are pregnant, get a couple ultrasounds before they are 35 weeks along. The one done around 16 weeks is when you usually can find out the sex of the baby if you choose. That's because there is plenty of room for the baby and all the parts are easily visible. My baby was head down, facing my spine, curled up in fetal position ready to make the decent into the outside world. At that time, my baby wasn't interested in moving around so we couldn't see the necesary parts, or lack there of.

I wipe off that nasty goop, get dressed and we walk back out to the reception area to check out. I wanted to tell the receptionist "I told you so." But since I'm a Mom now, I have to find and maintain a certain level of maturity, so I keep my mouth shut and smile. Joel hasn't said a word since we got to the ultrasound place. He looked like he was in a fog. We get into the car, he turns to me, puts his hand on my tummy and says "Oh shit. You're really pregnant."

Daddy and Daughter