Our Ninja Baby

We finally had our first baby appointment with our OB/GYN, Dr. Guida. Apparently the first baby appointment occurs between weeks 8-10*. But Liz was gone to Western Washington for her month-long preceptorship**, so it waited until she got back home.

The appointment was fairly standard, with family history questions, physical examination, and some blood squeezed out of Liz. That part wasn't very successful and Liz had to return to give more blood. She also got a vaccine shot for H1N1 (swine flu), which was not too bad. It was pretty funny at the exam, since her doctor was explaining to a visiting med student about Toxoplasmosis (Liz is getting tested for since she works with kitties), something Liz has learned extensively in VetMed School. Goes to show you...veterinarians learn a lot more about zoonotic diseases than human MDs. (sigh!)

But overall, Liz and Keith were excited for the appointment. They had read in one of her many baby books that they would use a Doppler in this appointment (Liz is reading a frenzy of books, since this is like studying for Boards!).

This may be exaggerated, but Liz and Keith are reading a lot of baby books!

For those who don't know, a Doppler is used to listen to heartbeats. So Liz was excited to finally hear the baby's heart! After much trying, Dr. Guida just couldn't get the heart beat on the Doppler. Liz was crushed...but wait! Dr. Guida decided to warm-up the ultrasound and just take a look to reassure these first-time parents that everything was okay. This was wonderful, since this pushed the appointment into after hours for the clinic. Did we mention how wonderful Dr. Guida is!?!

So Liz and Keith got to SEE THE BABY! Liz and Keith got to see the heart beating, and the heart rate was about 170-180. Of course Liz stated, "That's just like a cat!" The baby was moving around so much, it was no wonder why the Doppler didn't work! Dr. Guida could barely get pictures, since the baby was swinging arms and twisting around so much.

The black sac is the amniotic fluid and the white thingy at the bottom is our baby! To the left is the heart, but it's hard to see in this picture since the little one was so active.

At one point, it looked like the little poppy seed*** was doing the Twist! This made Keith exclaim, "How can you not feel that?!?" Of course he knew that movements cannot be felt by the Mommy until 20 weeks, but it was incredible that so much movement could happen without Liz noticing.

Here you can see the head to the right and above the head is a tiny cute hand. If you look closely, you can actually see the baby's little digits!

It was such a wonderful experience and incredible that the baby is already so active. Dr. Guida called it our Mexican Jumping Bean. Liz called it the Ninja Baby - moving around without detection!




*Pregnancy is measured in weeks because the development changes from week to week. I never knew that before, since it's always talked about in trimesters. So I'll be talking about it in weeks, just because that is the standard.

**At Burien Veterinary Hospital, which is an awesome place! Loved it there!

***We call our baby poppy seed (for now), since at the beginning we were amazed that since a poppy seed-sized creature could cause such profound GI effects on Liz.