Ultrasounds, Medicalization, Baby Pics

I've been having some weird symptoms lately, including dizzy spells that are combined with chest pains and send me to the emergency room*, and my doctor decided to check my protein and albumin levels among other things and thinks they're scary low.  My midwife disagrees.  Doc (and his OB friend who has delivered 20,000 babies) has never seen anything like it in a pregnant woman, my midwife has.  Midwife thinks they're only slightly low and can more than likely be fixed by eating more protein, Doctor thinks there may be something seriously wrong with me.  I wonder if he knows fully what the norms are in pregnancy, since they are lower than in a non-pregnant woman.  And OH!  Did I mention that I have had SERIOUS protein aversions this pregnancy (and last) which have made it really difficult to eat protein (of any kind)?  I wonder if that could have had any impact on my blood levels!

So, despite my own research (which suggests he's overreacting) and my midwife's feelings on it, my doctor insisted on me getting ultrasounds of some of my internal organs, and... the baby.  I fought it at first; I was terrified of these (possibly misinterpreted) labs leading him to overreact to something in the ultrasound, which could cause him to further overreact to other things and cause a chain reaction that ends with me having a high-intervention, medicalized birth in the hospital.  There are very real risks associated with hospital (and particularly c-section) births, and this is the biggest reason I'm choosing to birth at home.  And furthermore, there are scientists and doctors out there who dispute the safety of ultrasounds on babies in utero.  So I only wanted to get one if medically indicated and I wasn't sure this was the right indication.

Anyway, though I was totally terrified, I went yesterday to get my ultrasounds.  The woman performing them said they all looked normal (mine & the baby's).  My experience (with my previous pregnancy) tells me that doctors can still decide that there is something to freak out about even when everything is FULLY normal in an ultrasound (remind me to tell you the story of how my local clinic was convinced I was going to miscarry because there was no fetal pole present in a 5-week ultrasound, which is completely normal!), so I'm still uncomfortable about where this may be going.  But we did all get to see the baby.  Regin says, "Hi Baby!"  I thought I'd share some of the best images with you.

First a couple of belly shots:




And now for the baby...

I think I know the sex. I thought I saw the region in question, though I wasn't sure, then the ultrasound woman kept using a certain pronoun, though I wasn't sure if I was mishearing her. Then she clearly used the same pronoun I thought I was hearing, and after a few seconds she corrected herself and said the other 'possibility'. George of course was blissfully unaware of it all, and since he wants to be surprised, I can't share what I thought I heard. I can't talk at all about the baby's sex or what I think it might be for the next few months! AARGH! I don't know if I can keep my mouth shut that long. Stupid ultrasound lady!!


Of course, I don't know for sure... maybe she didn't even look in that area. Maybe there weren't as many slips of the tongue as I thought. Maybe she was picking generic genders just to avoid saying 'it' the whole time. Maybe... maybe... maybe...



*I should say that the emergency room doctor said he was confident that there was nothing seriously wrong with me and my symptoms can be signs of such relatively benign things like panic attacks.