The 12 Week Scan
Posted by James | Posted in My Timeline, Pregnancy | Posted on 15-04-2012
At last, I thought this day would never come. After 8 weeks of knowing we were expecting but not telling anyone (except our parents), we have been for our first scan today.
Even though the scan itself was first thing in the morning, I took the whole day off work so we could go around and tell people. What an amazing day it’s been, so emotional and exciting.
I’ve seen these types of scan photos before, the mainly black photograph with a blob in the middle that resembles a half-melted alien, which aparently is a baby. I’ve never really been able to decypher the photo to see anything to get excited about. I know that might make me sound heartless or flippant, but I never really took much notice of these scan photos. But all that has changed now I have seen the scan for real.
The scan itself was amazing! I highly recommend any expecting dads out there to move heaven and earth to make it to the scan. In fact, I plead with you to go, you will not regret it. Regardless of work commitments or anything else going on in your life, if you can make it to the scan, please go!
It makes the whole thing seem much more real. Also, something that never occurred to me before today, it’s not just the photograph that you see, you can actually watch the baby move around in there! You can see the heart beating, you can see the head, the arms, the feet, even the jaw. I suppose because my wife doesn’t have a bump yet, and she has had a really good pregnancy (so far!) with no sickness or anything major it’s easy to forget there is a baby in there. But seeing it for the first time was amazing.
After the scan my wife and I went to the cafe in the hospital to take some time to take it all in before we start phoning and visiting friends and family. I think that was an important time, just the two of us (or two and a half of us!). We sat and spoke about how amazing the scan was. We just saw our child moving around for the first time! We were both sitting there grinning from ear to ear.
After the hospital we visited, phoned and texted family and friends, telling everyone we met and showing off the scan photo. After going so long keeping it a secret, it felt great being able to tell everyone. In the afternoon we went to Mamas & Papas and saw the pushchair we wanted. It was one that could convert from a pram to a pushchair, with good suspension and decent tyres, something that’s a must if you live in a rural place! Our baby-fuelled excitement boiled over and we ended up buying the pram. We now have a brand new pram sitting in our house. Even though it isn’t going to be used for 6 months, it feels nice seeing it in the house. I know in a few months time the house will be overrun with baby stuff so this feels like a good way to ease us into giving up any free floorspace to the list of stuff we need for the baby. I can’t wait!
We get another scan when we reach 20 weeks. It’s at that scan that some hospitals can tell you the sex of the baby. Our hospital doesn’t tell. I guess they are scared in case they get it wrong and get sued or something. I don’t think we would want to know anyway, it will be a nice surprise when the time comes!
