A frosty start heading out for our Carribean cruise

But we're in Florida now and will be boarding ship tomorrow. I'll try and post again before we sail (steam? diesel?) out of range.

Ultrasound Results, Heavenly Bodies, and Off We Go A-Cruisin

Okay, I'm sorry this took so long, but we've been a bit busy.

The ultrasound, and accompanying blood tests, came out perfect. We went in with about a 1 in 100 chance of Downs and such, based on our age, and when the results were in we were at about 1 in 2000. We got some good views of the baby, though once again I was unable to be in the room. This is my fave: alien baby. I tell everybody it has my hairline.

Last night I lucked into getting some shots of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter in close proximity in the sky. I had read a few days ago about them being close, but the weather has been unfavorable. Luckily last evening it cleared up for a while and I was able to get a view around dusk. This shot was taken hand-held with a fast exposure to get some lunar surface detail and minimize halos. It came out okay, but I wish I'd had my tripod handy. If you got shots of this phenomenon too, post a comment with a link. Click it for a somewhat larger view.

Tomorrow we are leaving to go on a cruise in the Bahamas. It's a Disney cruise, perpetrated by my Disney-obsessed sister in law, so one of the ports-of-call will be their private island with its manufactured beach, scenery, and entertainments. I believe we'll be stopping at another island as well with real stuff to see. I'm not sure how the weather will be. We were signed up for snorkling and such but a bit of research has revealed an average water temperature in the mid 70s this time of year so we've canceled that. I guess we'll just do a bit of biking and lounging. In any case I'll try to take pictures, and if my phone miraculously works I may post one or two from there. We'll be back Monday.

Waiting For Nuchal Fold Ultrasound

Much bigger and fancier than the other waiting rooms we've been in.

Tomorrow's The Election

I'm going to be voting for Barack Obama. Enough has been said in his favor so I won't go into that. Things have been said against him as well, but from what I've seen they have been mostly distortions at best, and random stuff from left field in the main. That's my very summary perspective on it.

Anyway, here are a few links that may help you if you are still undecided.

Obama on the issues - statements and details on his positions on various issues. If you've mostly heard about him via email forwards you may find things different from what you were told.
factcheck.org - check the claims and statements by the candidates and others, and seperate the noise from the real.
Political Compass - take a quiz and see how you fit in among the candidates and other figures.

Doin' The Ultrasound Boogie!

We went in for the second ultrasound yesterday morning at the regular OBGYN office that will be taking over now. After some parking adventure we went in and joined my sister in law in the waiting room. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

After an hour or more they called her in. She had to have blood taken and her history so we staid in the waiting room for that. Then she came out and told us that since the exam room was so tiny they would only allow one person in there with her. Naturally my wife went, so I didn't get to see the ultrasound live - just a couple stills.

The machine was reportedly nearly a couple decades old, so the images weren't as clear as they might be, but I could still make it out. But my wife tells me she could see the arms and legs moving! It's an energetic little guy or gal in there. The doctor says you don't always see that, but when you do it's a good sign. W00t!

One Baby On The Way!

Okay, the poll is closed and of the many many guesses - okay, one guess - nobody guessed right.

We have one baby on the way. The results couldn't have been better. By every measure it's right down the center of the expected range for a healthy baby. We even counted the heartbeats together.

There were three of us in there besides my sister in law: me, my wife, and my mother-in-law. Since it was done with a vaginal ultrasound probe (the dildocam, as my wife calls it) we were huddled together towards the head of the table. We all got a good view of the screen, though. When the doctor announced he spotted the heartbeat (which was obvious when he held the probe still for us) we were all elated. It was such a relief. Here you can see one of the stills he printed out for us. The baby is over the little "X" and the yolk sac is above it to the left. Both are within the amniotic sac.

Afterward in conference with the doctor he told us we had walked in the exam room with a 15-20% chance of a miscarriage, and walked out with a 5% chance. Our next ultrasound is two weeks after this one, but with the OBGYN practice that's taking over.

First Ultrasound's Friday Morning

It's almost 2AM and we're heading out for the first ultrasound at 8AM. My mother-in-law is tagging along. My wife has mixed feelings about that, in case things go badly, but she was in the waiting room for the transfer so maybe she's good luck.

I'm nervous. I'm really scared of things not turning out right, but I've been trying not to show it, and not to think about this these past two weeks. If things go bad I'm going to have to be the strong one. I guess I'll cry on my own. Hopefully it won't come to that.

But even though I've been trying to occupy myself and not think about it, this has been the slowest damn two and a half weeks of my life. Yeesh!

I had been thinking of putting up a poll to have visitors here guess how many we had growing and whether any looked to be identicals. I've decided not to, though, unless and until we see a healthy fetus in the ultrasound. After that, I'll put up a poll for a few days before announcing the real result. Hopefully it'll be fun.