Early Glimpses

I ended up with what I think is an unusually high amount of ultrasounds during my pregnancy.  I didn’t mind though because it was nice to keep an eye on Jack. 

The very first ultrasound was when I was only 5 weeks pregnant.  I had a bit of a scare so we went to the emergency room at the hospital across the street from my building.  The rushed me through triage and did an ultrasound to detect the heartbeat (not even a guarantee at this early stage).  Jack’s heart, however, was pumping strong and steady, safe within me.  It made me cry (along with pretty much everything else I was to encounter for the rest of my pregnancy).  There was no visual with this ultrasound, but I was really sad that Harold was in a different room for the first heartbeat.  The hospital, in a Hong Kong fashion that I have really come to appreciate, erred on the side of caution and zipped me by ambulance to a nearby hospital that has an antenatal ward (the hospital where Jack was born), and admitted me for the night so they could keep an eye on things.  Obviously, everything was fine.  (I went from being at my own home to having a bed at the second hospital in less than an hour.  I really can’t say enough good about the efficiency of the Hong Kong public hospitals.)

Upon discharge, I was put on bedrest for an amount of time I just can’t remember now (again, erring on the side of caution).  I missed two birthday parties and one Christmas party, and went back to work for one day before heading to Canada for the holidays.  In that time, we wanted to see our little guy to make sure everything was still alright and I kept crying because Harold hadn’t heard the heart yet.  Many obgyns here have their own ultrasound machine in their office so I went to my private doctor and had an ultrasound.  Jack was doing great and we could see his little heart beating away.  For anyone who happens to come across this in a web search, if you are looking to supplement your public hospital care with a few private scans and checkups, I highly recommend you go to the New Territories.  It’ll be a fraction of the cost. 

My picture is the one on the right.  I was comparing it to the left one of twins on the internet because I thought mine looked like twins too.  Spoiler alert: it wasn't.

At 12 weeks, we had a standard scan at the hospital.  At this point, we found out that Jack was a boy.  Super early, but super obvious!  I also found out I had an anterior placenta, which means that everything is fine, but the placenta was attached to the front of my uterus instead so I’d be less likely to feel Jack.  However, I ended up feeling my super active boy very early on (I think it was about 14 weeks).   Through the whole pregnancy, except for the last few weeks, I did go for days at a time without feeling him because all the action was cushioned by the placenta.  For some really weird reason, they won’t print out a copy of the 12 week scan for the parents to keep.  However, they do give you an envelope to bring to another area of the hospital, so if you’re really careful with the opening the envelope, you can take a picture of the picture before delivering it. 

12 weeks <3

At 18 weeks, we had another standard scan (this time privately because the hospital was overbooked).  We got to count his little fingers and toes.  <3  The whole session was being recorded but I didn’t realize, so we actually have a video of it.  Unfortunately the video has audio and therefore captured me asking stupid questions that only a derpy pregnant lady would think of like, “Whoa!  Are those his brain waves?” when referring to a close-up of blood flowing in an out of the heart.

Structural scan.  How cute is that femur?

 At 25 weeks, I had some serious cramping so I went to emergency again.  Within about 10 minutes they had me in for a scan and I saw him happily sucking his thumb and hiccupping.  He had the hiccups ALL THE TIME in those days and still gets them quite often.  No pictures of that scan.  

At 30 weeks, we went to Annerley Midwives Clinic for a 4D ultrasound.  We actually ended up going twice (once for free) because Jack wouldn’t cooperate.  He faced backwards so we got a lot of really good shots of his spine, and we must have caught him during his afternoon nap.   The second time, I chugged a lot of orange juice before we went and it did work to make him move around but he was still facing backwards for most of it.  When he turned around, he was playing with his umbilical cord or putting his feet in his face, so we could see his very active personality, but seeing his face was going to be a lost cause.  These were the closest we could get, but they were just fleeting moments.

Only eight weeks to go…