My 12 week 3 day photos

Tam and I went for the first (official) prenatal exam today. This is the 12 week exam where you usually get the first ultrasound, some blood work and a consultation with the doctor.

I expected to see the baby, the head and body and limbs... but I wasn't expecting it to move so much. It was very active, and kicking his (we've taken to calling it him... but that's just due to a lack of appropriate pronoun) legs, arms, turning over and generally thrashing about. It's about the size of a softball (6.somthing centimeters from crown to rump) and the hearbeat is about 170 beats/minute I think I heard.

The full results of the tests will be weeks coming, but based on the activity, there's something going on in there. It was rolling around, and the lady doing the ultrasound was poking and prodding it trying to get it to turn the right way to make a measurement. It's aware of it's surroundings (at least when it gets nudged or when mom coughs or laughs).

In this first image I think (it was much clearer on the monitor) we're seeing the head (notice what look like teeth) on the left. This was a little confusing later, because I think the lady turned the device around and everything turned the other way in the subsequent photos. We at first thought the baby had turned around completely, and I was rather impressed by these gymnastics. Not so though...
In this second photo I can see (again... I think) things more clearly. To the right is the baby's head, with possibly the little hand just above (it kept moving around quite a bit... and we think it may have been sucking its thumb). In the middle is the body... as you'd expect. And to the left are the babys knees (the particularly white spots) and legs.

It was really thrasing about and kicking it's legs and giving us little waves.
In this final photo you get the best view of, what I've decided to consider, the baby's face.... and possibly a hand and arm with fingers. This, of course, could completely be my imagination. Look in the lower right. It's definately the head... but can you see an eye? The hand and arm are definate... it was moving it around and waving alot. Possible thumb sucking here...

Tam's worried that it doesn't have enough space in there... but I'm sure it knows what it's doing. It's little coocoon of fluid looks pretty relaxing to me.

So that's it. It seems all is well. We had a nice chat with a kindly old doctor after the traditional blood lettings. He did his best to answer our questions, and reassure us that everything seems ok, and that the various pains and pressure are all normal parts of this experience.