Our First Ultrasound

On Tuesday, we went to our first prenatal appointment, and it turned out to be somewhat of an event for us.  It's been over two years since we had to make those routine OB visits, and we forgot about how the OB can keep you waiting for what seems like forever sometimes!  Both Chris and I rushed to get to the appointment on time, but only ended up waiting over 30 minutes to see the doctor.  Once in the exam room, the nurse brought in the Doppler in order to listen to our baby's heartbeat so that our pregnancy could be confirmed.  She moved the little microphone around on my abdominal area for at least 10 minutes.  After 5 minutes of total silence, I was beginning to tear up, fearing that we would not be hearing a heartbeat.  The nurse explained to me that there was no need to worry.  That most likely my c-section scar tissue was preventing the Doppler from picking up the sounds of the heartbeat.  She also said that the doctor would come in and lift my uterus, which would probably make it where we would hear it.  To me, that sounded awful!  What misery or discomfort was I going to go through to lift my uterus?  The doctor came in and performed a pelvic exam.  This did not feel good at all.  The doctor explained that she could not lift my uterus because it was tilted, and this is also why the pelvic exam was painful to me.  Ultimately, we were going to have to have an ultrasound.  Yeah!  Chris and I were elated!  I had been told that no ultrasound would be done on the first visit, but like any other mommy, I wanted to see our baby!  So, we were put back into the waiting room to wait for the office's technician to call us back.  Since we were not scheduled for an ultrasound, we had to wait a long time.  Once in, the technician told me to get up on the table.  Again, I was thrilled that she was not going to perform a vaginal ultrasound.  I had already been through enough poking and prodding for one day!  The lab was neat because they had a big, flat screen TV that showed the ultrasound on it instead of us watching a tiny computer monitor.  We were delighted to see Baby Taylor 2 staring in our direction with his or her little hands up by the face, practically waiving at us!  Afterwards, we went back in to see the doctor, and she congratulated us on our pregnancy.  She explained that not only did I have scar tissue blocking the Doppler, but also the placenta was in the front, in between the baby and the Doppler.  She indicated that as the baby grew bigger, the Doppler would be able to pick up the heartbeats.  She said that the baby looked great, and the gestation is where we anticipated.  Then she said to come back in 2 weeks for another ultrasound and blood work to screen for chromosomal defects.  We were there for a total time of 2.5 hours.  We are looking forward to seeing our baby again in 2 weeks!