Flu shot ≠ Immunity ≠ Shrinking Baby

The doctors told me to get a flu shot.

I got a flu shot.

Two months later, I got the flu.

I didn't get it for 3-4 days; I only had to deal with it for 24 hours. Thank God. Thank the universe. Thank the happy and helpful fetus cells working in my body. (Which, BTW, the thyroid tests show might be helping to balance my TSH and my free T4. Rock on, baby!)

We had an appointment for our ultrasound and went despite the fact that I had only consumed 3 oz. of fluids in 12 hours. The nurse line said shoot for 4. I didn't think it could be that difficult. And, about two hours before the appointment, I felt like telling Dan "I am in hell. This is hell." Because I felt like the guy in this video. (Warning: not for the faint of stomach.) Of course when I told him about it later he knew I was recovering because my sense of humor tends to resurface after the worst part of a situation has passed.

Anyway, I was nervous that I was going to have to step on the scale in the office because I didn't want the doc to give me another lecture about losing weight (I lost 3# through the holidays). I don't know of any other time that I was nervous about losing weight...I guess there are a lot of firsts during pregnancy.

The calendar says we are 16 weeks, 3 days along. The baby says we are 16 weeks, 5 days along. Good to know that even though I hadn't eaten anything in 15 hours, that little one is still growing. The blogs say the baby should weigh in at about 5 oz.; ours tips the scale at 6 oz. (I hope that doesn't calculate out exponentially over the next five months. Yikes!)

The ultrasound technician was gentle with me as she poked around to get images of our baby bundle. We really got to see a lot this time--obviously there was a lot more to look at since the pictures at 7 (egg sack) + 10 weeks (a sea horse with a human skull). Dan was enthralled with the whole thing since he got to see the baby wave its arms and wiggle around during the 40 minute prodded photo shoot. We could see the spine, ribs, stomach, bladder, heart (which now has clear chambers--that were pumping at 152 beats per minute), tiny baby arm bones and face profile. The nurse thought this image was cute since you could see the face:


I, admittedly, was a little freaked out by the ginormous eye sockets. I was assured by the expert that this is normal. I'll just say an extra prayer that our baby doesn't end up looking (or acting) like this:



The technician did ask if we wanted to know the gender. I have always said that was Dan's call. I figure that I made decisions about this baby every single day--what I eat, what I do, what I feel, etc. He said he didn't want to know and she moved the magic wand away from where she was. So, she didn't go "there." Dan admitted that he was intent on the screen during the entire exam. Right after we left the exam room he asked me if I thought I saw "anything". I laughed and told him I thought she avoided the legs on purpose so that we wouldn't find out. So, for now, we have a little adorable little baby that looks like this:

What an cute little button nose!