Detailed Ultrasound

Just a quick update on little Wheat.  We went in today, the last day of my first trimester, to do a detailed ultrasound.  They checked his/her spinal fluid, brain development and a few other features.  When we first arrived and went in for the ultrasound, we could barely see him/her at all.  He was hiding behind the placenta and wouldn't move at all.  After a while of trying to get him to move so we could see more clearly, we finally decided to get up, walk around and come back after about 30 minutes to see if he had moved at all.  So we left that little office, went to get some blood work done for Andrew, grabbed a snickers and bag of chips to eat and we spilt a can of coke.  I did several laps around the lobby including a little bit of skipping and jumping (just a little).  Thankfully when we went back he was in a much better position for us to see him.

The doctor said everything looked good.  One of the main things he was looking for was the spinal fluid which would give indication of Downs Syndrome.  Little Wheat's looked good with no indications of Downs, but they gave us some blood tests to run to help confirm even more that he/she doesn't have Downs.  The blood tests were optional, but highly recommended.  What do you guys think?  Should we have this blood work done or not?  It doesn't matter to us if our baby has Downs or not, we are still having him or her regardless.  In this culture, abortion is not prohibited, but if your baby has a defect it is fine to have an abortion.  We are admittedly against abortion no matter how many problems our baby may or may not have.  So, with these blood tests, it doesn't really matter for us what the results are, but I guess it would be good to know beforehand so we could do some research or mentally prepare ourselves.  What does everyone think?

The Little Things

I want to write a quick blog about this picture so I don't forget it one day.  As I mentioned in my previous blog, I was quite emotional around the time that I found out I was pregnant.  For Christmas, Andrew gave me these little red Converse shoes as a gift, and a sort of symbol that we wanted to have a child.  I knew in my mind that whenever we did get pregnant I wanted to take a picture with all of our shoes to announce the little one.  So, we found out on a Friday that I'm pregnant.  My family usually all gets together on Tuesday for dinner together.  I really wanted to tell them all then so I wouldn't have to wait very long.  In order for the picture to be ordered and sent to them by Tuesday, we needed to take the picture asap.  Unfortunately, that was an extremely rainy and overcast weekend.  Andrew didn't even want to go outside to take the picture, but I convinced him that it would be worth it and that even in the rain the picture would still look cool.  I had a couple of places in mind to take the pictures and this one here is at an overlook just near our house.  When we left our apartment it was raining but not quite as hard and just as we walked up to this overlook the rain slowed down to basically nothing and the clouds parted letting through some sun and sky.  We set the shoes up and Andrew started shooting away and after a minute or two we realized there was a rainbow!  It's quite hard to see in this picture, but coming out of the right hightop, there is a faint rainbow.  It was such a blessing to me.  I was such an emotional wreck, I didn't know how on earth we were going to have a baby, but God cleared the sky for us and gave us a rainbow.  His rainbow is a sign to all the earth that He will never destroy it again by flood, but for me that day, it was His way of comforting me and letting me know He designed this pregnancy and give us this little life and He is going to take care of us even when we don't understand or know how.

As soon as Andrew was satisfied with the pictures he had taken, we were about to move to another location and take some more but the skies closed back up and the rain began falling hard once again.  We decided that those pictures were just perfect and God had given us that little window to take them.  Sometimes it is easy to think that God has so much going on and He doesn't have enough time to worry about your little problems, but that's not who God is.  He loves us, each, individually, and believe it or not, He even cares about the little things in our lives.

Pregnancy Overseas

Well, I don't really know what pregnancy is really like overseas since I am not quite through my first trimester yet, but I'll tell you how it's been so far...

At Christmas time Andrew and I decided that we might be ready to have children.  We weren't really going to try to get pregnant, but just stop all forms of birth control, put it in God's hands and see what happened.  I honestly expected it to be quite a while before we ever got pregnant just because I know so many people who have tried and tried to get pregnant and it took so long for them.  But God blessed us and less than a month later we found out we were pregnant.  Perfect timing :)

I noticed that I was getting quite a bit more emotional about things.  I believe I cried in two taxis the week before we found out I was pregnant.  So, when we did find out, I was quite the emotional wreck.  I realized I had no clue about anything!  I didn't know when I should call the doctor, is it like a sickness where you have to call right away and they see you asap?  Thanks to Google, I found out that in America doctors don't usually see you until like 8 to 10 weeks or something like that, but that you needed to go ahead and call and get your appointment scheduled.  Our company has a list of doctors for our country that they know as good and would recommend.  I pulled out the list and there were two doctors listed under OB/Gyn.  I Googled them both and one of them had his own hospital so I picked him :)  I got up the courage to call...it was a nightmare!  The ladies on the phone didn't have very good English, and I was not of the right state of mind to attempt Arabic.  I finally hung up the phone having made an appointment that was a week and a half away, but realized they never took any of my information and I had no clue which doctor I had made an appointment with!  I called back about a week later to reschedule my time and thankfully I had pulled myself together enough then to be able to confirm the doctor and make sure they had all of my information.

When the day of my first appointment came, we walked the thirty some minutes from our apartment to the  hospital.  We walked into the main lobby of the hospital, told the lady at the reception desk we had an appointment and with whom.  Since it was my first visit, we had to go into the clinic to sign in.  Andrew and I make our way down this little narrow hallway.  There are men everywhere (uncomfortable there are so many men around, but also glad because I kinda thought Andrew might be the only guy there), Andrew has to part the waters for me to make it into the clinic.  The clinic is probably exactly like what you would picture in your mind as a clinic in an Arab country.  There were people standing and sitting everywhere.  I of course am the only white and uncovered woman in the place, it's so hot in there I'm beginning to sweat after just a couple of minutes.  I check in at the desk, they get my name and this is how it is listed on the form: the wife, the husband, the father (my father), the family.  So yes, my dad will be glad to know that he is now registered at the hospital here.  After we fill out the proper paper work, the lady tells us to take a seat.  There are no seats so one of the other girls there tells us to go back out to the lobby and they'll come get us.  As we're waiting all I can think to myself is, "What have we gotten ourselves into?!?"  I didn't want to have my baby in that clinic back there.  Thankfully, after a few minutes of waiting, a lady comes to get us and takes us upstairs to the 11th floor.  When those elevator doors open it was like we were in another country, like back in America but nicer.  Huge windows, huge plush furniture, espresso machines...I knew we had made the right choice :)

I think my first appointment was pretty standard compared to America except that along with the usual mix of things I also got my kidneys and gallbladder sonogramed.  I guess being in the desert a lot of people don't stay hydrated like they should so they show up with a lot of problems.  The doctor wasn't available the day of my first appointment, so his two assistants just did everything.  We got to see the little round ball of our little Wheat and given a long list of blood work I needed to have done.  They scheduled another appointment for me just a couple weeks later.  At that appointment we just went straight up to the 11th floor (bypassing the clinic altogether).  We met the doctor this time and I am pretty sure he is the oldest Arab man I have ever seen in my entire life!  You don't usually see a whole lot of older Arab people (I think mainly just because they stay inside), and this guy just quite frankly is really old.  We did another sonogram and saw little Wheat's heart beating.  I had to do a little bit more blood work because my blood type is O- and they scheduled my next appointment for a month later.

That appointment we had today :)  Everything went smoothly and quickly.  We got to see our little Wheat jumping, kicking and punching.  He was so cute!  It is crazy to believe that that little round thing now looks like a little baby with arms and legs!  The doctor seemed excited that he was jumping.  He said that that rules out a lot of problems he could have, like downs syndrome.  At every appointment they always ask us if we have any questions.  We never do.  We kinda just go with the flow, but I kinda feel bad for not having any questions.  But honestly I don't know enough to have questions.

They scheduled two more appointments for me today.  One in about ten days (after my first trimester is over) and then another one a month after that.  I am not entirely sure, but I think at my next appointment in ten days they are going to do a 3D ultrasound.  We have to go to a different floor for that appointment and I have heard that it is their usual routine to do a few 3D ultrasounds during the pregnancy.  So who knows?  Maybe!

Here is our sonogram picture from today.  Unfortunately it doesn't look as clear and you can't see his/her little arms and legs, but trust me they're there!

Sorry this was such a long blog, maybe my Mom and Aunt Sharon will enjoy it :)  Thanks for reading and I'll definitely try to keep you updated, especially if I do get that 3D ultrasound in ten days.