20 weeks scan

It was tempting... but we didn't find out the baby's sex. Dr. Stokes knows, which is kind of weird. He'll probably tease us about it for the next 20 weeks but at least we can ask if we ever change our minds. 

The 20 weeks scan was very cool. Dr. Stokes measured all sorts of things, such as the thigh bone, arm, head and waist circumference and Clucklette was normal in all of those things. He does this because if some measurements aren't around the 50 percentile mark, or if they aren't consistent, it can be an indication that there is some problem. We saw the umbilical cord and the blood flowing in and out of it. Apparently some babies only have one blood vessel through the cord but we have two, which is good. Dr. Stokes pointed out the baby's bladder and kidneys. We saw the heart, and the four chambers, all looking normal. We saw the brain and its various components, again all the right size and in the right place. He even looked at the baby's lip to check for a cleft palate. So far there are no signs that this baby is anything other than healthy and normal, well as normal as you can be with a Buckle and a Clewett as parents. Toby asked Dr. Stokes to measure the baby and he was 15cm from crown to rump.

The baby's head was down in my pelvis and his bum up towards my ribs. Its back was to my left-hand side, facing backwards, and its feet over towards my right, near my hip. However, Dr. Stokes said they move around all the time so it probably won't stay in that position for long.

Once the important medical stuff was over with, Dr. Stokes had a bit of a play with the 3D imaging. This is such a cool tool. You basically take a 2D scan of the section you want to view in 3D, then you slice through the images in 3D until you see the bit you want to see. Baby was all curled up with his hands over his face but we were able to slice through the arm and get a nice picture of his head and face:

Can you see it? The spine is to the bottom of the image and the head is to the top. I think it's fairly easy to make out. The 2D images are quite obscure. Now that babby is a bit bigger you can't see all of him on one image so Paul (Dr. Stokes) just looked at the relevant sections to check the things he needed to check. Most of the time it was very difficult to see what was going on. Seeing this picture here made me very excited at the thought of meeting our baby and seeing what s(he) really looks like. We don't have long to wait I suppose; tomorrow I'm officially half way through, if Clucklette decides to arrive on time. That means that the length of time since I went to England is the same length of time until the baby joins us. That doesn't seem like long at all.

Meanwhile, I'm a lot happier now that I have some clothes that fit me. And I found my giant jeans, finally, although I haven't tried them on so I'm not sure if they fit. I have a definite bump now, although it's still very small. I've noticed that some people who don't know me that well have started flashing their eyes towards my bump as though they're not quite sure. 

Toby felt the baby move the other night, which was cool although the movements are still very subtle for him. I have had a few kicks which are different to the usual fluttery movements I get. It can be quite uncomfortable and always takes me by surprise.

I have now put on 5kg.

Nana sent another parcel which included loads of bibs, a nice soft blanket and a few toys. The baby now has two shelves of goodies in the spare room. My parcel from Mam still hasn't arrived. I'm beginning to think it never will which is very disappointing. Mam is obviously upset about it too. She said it had some really nice clothes in it. I don't understand how it can just disappear like that - it has to be somewhere.

I think it is probably okay to mention now that Lucie is 11 weeks pregnant. It's very exciting going through it together and it'll be great next year when we have little bubs that can play with one another and we can babysit for each other. -->I caught up with Nirvana the other day and found out how she has been getting on with her bub, Bodhi who was born early March. Amongst other things we discussed nappies. Toby and I intend to use cloth nappies primarily (although not solely) and Nirvana had the same intention but gave up. She has offered to sell her nappies onto us but I need to do a bit more research first. I'm a bit put off because she said Bodhi felt wet and didn't like them but she has a friend who uses them and loves them. I guess it's horses for courses and you don't know what's going to work until you try. With that in mind I will buy both cloth and disposables over the next few months but won't try and get a full quota of cloth until I'm sure that's what I want to use. I'll only buy the disposables when they're on special too.