Baby's first picture

Here it is- our baby's first picture. I think it looks like Ashley. We went to the doctor on 8/22/07 and they took some pictures. They can tell a lot even this early. For instance, they told us our baby's due date is April 10th, and they could tell us to the day how old the baby was. I read online that this is the most accurate measure of a due date. If another scan done 6 or 8 weeks later says that you should have a new due date which is further away, you should not normally change the date but should rather interpret the finding as that the baby is not growing at the expected rate. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there for someone like me who has everything to learn!

They also told us that there were two other eggs that decended but neither were fertalized. So, all you people out there who assumed we were having twins, apparently we were not that far off. Let's just say that we were happy with one.

So, I'm going to show you the pictures and then I'll explain it as best as I can.

Ok, so there's out baby in that egg shaped thing. The doctor told us that this is a "textbook" picture of what a 6 weeker should look like. My kid is getting mentioned in the same sentence as textbooks. Sounds more like Ashley's kid. Seriously though, most of the pictures I saw online weren't nearly this clear, nor were the eggs this round. You can see the gestational sac in the top right corner of the egg, it kind of looks like a head. The baby crown to rump is the shrimp shaped thing just to the bottom left of the sac. The curve of it they told me was it's tail, but they really meant it's spine. They gave me a heart attack, talking about tails! Our baby is happy and healthy, and (knock on wood) hasn't made Ashley sick yet.

We could see the heart beat, it sort of looks like the baby is winking at you. It is still to early to hear the heart beat, but it was fun seeing it move. All in all, it was amazing how much we could learn so quickly about our baby. As a visual learner, I was captivated with the real-ness this oppurtunity gave me, to SEE my child. It took my breath way. Only the first time of many, I'm sure.

As sort of a point of interest, if you look in the upper left corner of the picture you'll see one of the other two eggs just chilling out. While they look like potential brothers and sisters now, their time table for becoming fertalized has long since past. Thank God I went to Mexico that week... sorry- tmi.

While we were there, we chose the doctor who is the hardest to get an appointment for, but that's because he's the best. He's been delivering babies for 18 years, and he likes to pray with his patients.

We are looking forward to meeting with him in the future. Our next appointment is on September 24th!

Well, I have to go to bed now, we just wanted you all to be able to see our baby.

We love you all and Ashley sends her love, she's is getting some much needed rest.

Take care out there!