Confirmation Doctor's Appointment

On September 18, 2008 we went in for what is known as the "confirmation appointment." At this point we'd known about the baby for three and a half weeks, but you have to wait until you are at least six weeks along - and then we had to take a vacation to Hilton Head in there too. So our first appointment ended up being six days after Hurricane Ike hit Houston - power and traffic lights were still out throughout most of the city leaving the office with a skeleton staff, and us with a lot of one-on-one attention from the doctor. Not a bad thing for your very first OB appointment.

The most exciting part of that first appointment is the ultrasound (trust me, its not when they take 15 vials of your blood). It is an incredibly surreal moment to hear someone say for the first time, "And there's your baby!" I found a surprising amount of comfort in looking at the kidney bean-shaped grey blob that really looked nothing like a baby at all. But it looked right to the doctor and she had said the words I'd needed to hear to make this all real. But it was what she would say next that were the words Chris really needed to hear. "And there's definitely only one in there" led to his response of, "Oh good! Let's take this one at a time!"

I also had a moment when I felt exactly like Rachel in the episode of Friends when she and Ross go for their first OB appointment. The doctor pointed out the heartbeat and Chris immediately recognized it and agreed. I smiled and nodded. I think she caught that because she pointed it out again. Ok, sure. Later I asked Chris if he really saw the heartbeat. "Yeah it was that flicker inside the baby - almost looked like a skip in the picture." And just like Rachel, I responded, "Oh, well I saw that!"

So I left that day with a picture of my grey blob and the knowledge that this was all really. We are really going to be parents!