3D ultrasound pics

We had our last appointment with the specialist yesterday. The ultrasound tech, as she was measuring Mia's head said, "Whoa, look at that hair!" In the ultrasound you could see her hair floating in the amniotic fluid off the back of her head. It was the craziest thing! Looks like our little one will have a full head of hair after all! We suspected as much because of the extreme heartburn I've had, but it was so fun to see! :) Oh, I forgot to mention that they estimated her measurement at about 7 and 1/4 pounds, but said that at this late stage in pregnancy it is hard to get an accurate measure and that they could be off as much as a half a pound either way. I guess we'll see how close they were when she gets here!

We were finally able to get to see little Mia's face! :) Usually she has her hands and/or feet up in front of her little face, and today was no exception. The last time we went in a month ago, she constantly had her hands in front of her mouth or IN her mouth and would not hold still long enough to get a clear ultrasound picture. Yesterday, however, even though our little acrobat had both her hands and feet up around her face, we were able to get a peek. As expected, she will be born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate.

These are the first pictures we were able to get where we could actually see the clefting, so though it was disheartening to see the actuality and severity of it, it was also reassuring to know what our baby girl will look like when she arrives. I had been having strange pregnancy dreams about her being born with no clefting, and then other dreams where her little lip didn't have any clefting at first but then she smiled and her little lip split open from the stretching of her tiny mouth. As a mom it's hard to have anything wrong with your child and you wish you could take it from them and go through it yourself. Though Zeus and I will not be able to take this from her, we will definitely be there all along the way with all the love and caring and support in the world.

Here are the ultrasound pics. I haven't gotten the scanner set up yet, though I think I finally found all the cords for it as I've gone through more boxes. So, these are some crummy low-resolution ones that we took with our cell phones until I can get the originals scanned.



These are the same photos - from different phones. It shows her little hand and leg/foot up around her face, with her mouth open to try and get those toes in! :)



Again, two photos from different phones. You can see her little hand and foot again up by her face, this was taken right before she realized her foot was close enough to tickle her cheek and before she decided to try and suck on her little toes! :) The white highlight on her lip is where they put the little pointer arrow to show the protrusion from the clefting in her lip.

Here are the last two of her little face. In the second one you can see her little shoulder and arm wrapped up around her little body.

Can't wait to meet you baby Mia and see how much you actually look like your ultrasound pictures. Your cousins Nathan and Christopher looked similar to their ultrasound pics, but quite different as well, so we can't wait to see you first hand baby girl! We also can't wait to rub that full head of hair and kiss your little face!!!