Sometime in earlyish August, we discovered A.) that Lottie is a Lottie and not a William or a Charles or a Daniel and B.) that Lottie appeared to have an irregular heartbeat. Now, being fans of large numbers and other scientifical things, we were aware that it was likely not a big deal, since many fetuses have irregular heartbeats at that age and just grow out of it, but still, it's a little worrying, you know? So naturally we set up an appointment at the first available time to see the resident high-risk OB for a fetal echo. We went to that appointment in late August and discovered... that the guy who does the echos wasn't there after all, and we'd have to come back another time. So we did. We waited another two weeks, came back, and were told again that the echo guy wasn't available after all, and we'd have to reschedule.
So, the next appointment was on Wednesday, October 9. That is, for those keeping track, about two months after first being told that our baby possibly had a heart defect. It's a long time to wait. But hey, we're patient people, so we came in Wednesday morning all ready to finally find out, aaaaand... Yeah, that's right. Dear Dr. Echo was gone again. Yep. Like I said, we're pretty patient, but that was kind of hard to swallow. So we decided to just hang out at the hospital all day long until he got back from his pedicure or whatever.
As it turned out, we were there for a bit over six hours. We got to go see the nurse practitioner, who told us very little of interest (except that my uterus is measuring about two weeks ahead, which is mildly interesting - I think it was about the same with Jim), and I got my glucose test finally, which was about as delicious as it was last time, only with a different flavor. I highly recommend choosing fruit punch over orange if you ever have the option. Still waiting to hear if I've got the beetus, though. And then finally around three o'clock we finally got to go have the echo done.
Long story short: Lottie is fine! Her heart looks awesome, everything is where it should be, all bits are functioning correctly, and there are no more signs of any irregularities. So that's good, yes? Plus, they gave us a shiny CD of ultrasound pictures, so I can actually show you! Success at last.
(Be warned - there are a LOT of ultrasound pictures here. If you are not a doting grandmother, you probably will not make it the whole way through.)
Here's Lottie at 11w6d at the NT scan, which was months and months ago. Note the hand in front of the face; she apparently likes it there.
A marginally more human-looking one from the anatomy check at 19w4d (the same one where we heard about the possible heart issue).
Again, from the 19w4d scan. Again with the hands.
Only one we could get of her face from that ultrasound. She kind of looks like the cowardly lion, yes?
22w4d, and looking very cerebral.
Also 22w4d (this was one of our consolation prize scans, since the good doctor wasn't there to do the echo).
And another! The poor ultrasound tech felt bad so she gave us a lot of 3-d pictures.
And this one's from Wednesday. Kind of a weird shot, but you can see her arm in front of her face with her nose and mouth poking out under it.
And from the side.
She apparently has one freakishly huge hand. Noah says she will probably go in circles when she learns to swim.
Creepy face-out-of-nowhere.
This one kind of looks like Jim did.
Mandibles!
And there's the hand.
Grouchy face and giant brainy cranium.
So there you have it. A nice healthy heart and 15 weeks of ultrasounds. And can you believe she's due in exactly three months today? Crazy talk, man. I don't think we're ready.
