Hello gorgeous

Yesterday was a real baby-filled day. Firstly, in the morning I had to go to the hospital for another scan to check the baby's kidneys. When they saw they were enlarged at 20 weeks, they told me to come back around 30 weeks to see if they had gone down to their normal size. I was calm because deep down I just knew it was going to be fine. R was convinced of this as well, so I was full of good faith when the sonographer spread the gel on my belly. She measured the head, the belly, the heart and everything looked good. Then she started hunting around for the kidneys. One was nice and small, well within the norm and the other was so small she could barely measure it - very, very good. I was so proud of our little child!

When the sonographer started comparing the measurements to the growth charts, she said it is a very large baby. The head is over 2 weeks ahead of the normal growth patterns and the rest of the body is also about 2 weeks ahead. It doesn't mean I got my dates wrong, just that our child is a quick grower. I suppose with parents this tall, it was bound to be a big child anyway, but this does fill me with dread when I think about the birth...

In the evening we had a private scan booked with a sonographer who does 3D and 4D scans. We could see the baby so clearly!! She started off with a normal 2D scan (but with much better equipment than the hospital) and when we'd seen all the different body parts in detail and the baby was facing forward, she switched to 3D. Suddenly we were looking straight in the face of our child! And what a cute little face it was too! The sonographer looked at both our noses and then declared the baby has its mum's nose. The full lips are definitely R's though. She kept focusing back on the face and I was glad of that - it's absolutely fascinating to be able to admire that little face which hasn't even been born yet! Even the sonographer said it is a really good-looking baby and I couldn't agree more.

After a while the baby was clearly fed up and put its arms and legs in front of its face. This gave the sonographer the opportunity to measure the various limbs and she'd also measured the head and torso. She said it is a very big child and also said its growth and development is about 2 weeks ahead. Based on all the measurements, she predicts the birth will be 5 days earlier, on 11th June. We shall see.

All in all we got 45 minutes of baby-viewing. Sturdy little arms, long legs, my turned-up nose, R's lips and a full head of hair already! I feel like I 'know' the baby much better now. Also, I can't wait to see if these pictures are close to the real thing. 9 more weeks and we'll find out...