Where's Waldo?

Pregnant couples eagerly await the appointment where they are able to find out the sex of their baby. For us, we eagerly awaited the appointment where we could continuously bombard the sonogram reader to NOT reveal the definition of baby's private parts. We mainly greeted this 5 month appointment with anticipation of seeing the baby in utero a few times larger than the last ultrasound. Since this is the last ultrasound the Dr. office gives us unless there are problems (God forbid), we could not wait to see the baby in detail! Was he sucking his thumb? Was she covering her eyes? Was he leaning over slightly to let a gas bubble escape? Was she sneaking a smoke thinking mom would not find out? Was he planning his escape from the hospital to avoid a life of insanity in the Clark household? No telling what this little renegade was up to but we were about to catch him or her in the act. Or not. As this was mainly an appointment for the technician to get measurements and make sure baby Clark was on track to have a normal sized head, it should have only taken 25 minutes or so. Not with us. Here is how this experience transpired in a nutshell.

1. They made me drink 2 bottles of water an hour before the appt. and NOT USE THE RESTROOM. This is plain torture for a pregnant lady as I have to use the bathroom at least every 20 minutes even when not drinking fluids. Mean...flat out evil.

2. They lay you and your full bladder down on the table in the dimly lit room and proceed to show you your full bladder in HD on a giant flat screen. Still not allowed to pee.

3. They measure your bladder and uterus and whatever it is you have in there. Still...not allowed to pee.

4. I cry out in desperation. She caves and lets me go.

5. As I return, she begins the measurements and I tell the technician I have to go again. She zooms in on my bladder again and yep, she says, it is filling up quite quickly. Like some people on live TV, the bladder is not something anyone needs to see on HD.

6. Two trips down and the business can begin. BUT, our bratty fetus decided not to cooperate. The views we got...spine curved, face down. Then, bottom of foot...facing the camera. Followed by gymnast style contortion. No cute "to go" pics for us. Damn.

7. Although we were highly annoyed that we couldn't see our future show us a profile or at least give us the bird, the technician was entertained. Now I am OK with being the butt of jokes and all but when she slaps and shakes my tummy like Chuck Liddell to see if it would dislodge the baby and change it's position, I start to wonder.

8. End result. Technician: 1 Clarkys: 0

She ends up with all the measurements she needs which to us looked like measuring blobs of plasma or Molly's excrement.
We end up with 8 pictures of Where's Waldo. I have included the VERY best one to show exactly how we were duped. At least we know the baby has at least one foot.

The technician did say it was a good thing we didn't want to find out the sex as she couldn't tell anyway. An hour and 45 minutes later, that is.

I never thought I could love the bottom of a foot so much.