My mom recently told me that she and my dad didn’t have any ultrasounds when she was pregnant with my sister Alisa or me, and they only had one with my youngest sister, Becca. I was blown away! (You might be surprised to learn that I know next to nothing about the evolution of medical technology.) Because of our miscarriage, Matt and I had one really early, at 6.5 weeks, and then we had another one at 10 weeks. Instead of just one at 20 weeks, I actually had two around the halfway point, and if my doctor were to recommend that I come in every week from now until the end of my pregnancy for an ultrasound, I would counteroffer to come in every other day. That’s how greedy I am for pictures of Little Hobbit.

I loooooooooove getting to see him. Every tiny piece of him. Every movement looks like a miracle to me, a sign that our son is already a gifted little genius, a perfect gentleman, our sweet sweet little love. (Sidebar: I get happy goosebumps when I say or type things like “our son.”) I am completely enamored of this person whom I’ve yet to meet, and the ultrasound experience has been one important way for me to feel connected to him.

At some point, Matt and I will have to decide how much of Baby Nolsen we’re going to share on social media, but right now, I just can’t resist sharing and sharing and sharing. My Grinchy little heart has burst wide open with love, and I can’t keep it all to myself (and I’ve okayed this all with his proud papa).

Since I’ve already written about our first two ultrasounds, I’ll skip to the second two.

Ultrasound #3
On May 13th, we went in for the big halfway appointment. It was at this appointment that we’d learn a lot more about how our baby was growing. Did everything look normal? Was there anything weird or suspicious or scary? We also hadn’t seen any pictures of him for a long time (11 weeks), and we were going to be able to learn the baby’s sex, so it goes without saying that we were pretty keyed up for this visit.

Since we ultimately learned that everything looked good and healthy and normal, I won’t keep you in suspense about that. The appointment was a lot of fun; the baby was incredibly active- so much so that Matt asked if babies can ever be too active- and had developed so much since we’d last seen it that we were both just totally overcome. Suddenly we were both so much more aware of all of the life that was actually, really growing inside of me.

Look at that profile! Baby has Matt’s nose.

This is how we know Baby Nolsen is a runner: those beautiful, strong legs.

Our ultrasound tech told us that she wasn’t able to get a good shot with the 3D camera, but she was able to tell, with “93% accuracy, ha-ha,” what sex our baby was. She printed off a picture with this crucial information and put it into an envelope. We left, giddy and giggling.

We’d long decided that we wanted to find out the sex and that we wanted to do something a little special for ourselves when we did. We are big pizza people and pregnancy has only increased my appetite for cheese, so we chose to have dinner at a place we like a lot, Black Sheep Pizza in St. Paul. We laid out our plan for our server: would he take the envelope and ask the kitchen to reveal the sex of our baby on our pizza? We weren’t sure what ingredient would work best, so we’d leave that up to them and happily eat whatever they used.

They could not have been sweeter to us. Our server kept us updated: the kitchen staff had opened the envelope and were on it. They had a plan. When our pizza came out, the manager did, too. And then so did the tears and hugs and kisses and general über excitement of feeling even closer to our little bundle of joy.

IT’S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!

So, they brought us two pizzas instead of just one, and when we asked them to be sure to add the second pizza to our bill, they told us, “Oh no, this is all on us,” and they paid for our entire meal. Then, when we left, they boxed up our leftovers and brought us one extra box. A present, they said, for when our little guy arrives. I mean, can you even?!

Newborn Black Sheep onesie!

The moral of this story is go to Black Sheep Pizza! What an awesome staff. It was already a special day for us, and they made it even better. Not to mention their pizza is seriously delicious, and we eat a lot of pizza, so we know.

Ultrasound #4
Two weeks later, I was back at my clinic for another ultrasound. My doctor wanted a better picture of Hobbit’s face, and, as noted earlier, I was more than happy to oblige. Since I thought this would be a quick appointment and because I’m hoarding my sick time to apply towards my totally unpaid maternity leave (thanks, America), Matt and I decided we’d just make this appointment for whenever I could go and we wouldn’t worry about Matt’s schedule. He’d made it to the Big One, and we thought this one would just be supplementary.

Happily for me, this appointment’s ultrasound tech told me she’d just been looking at “plain old uteruses” all day, and did I mind if she took more pictures than we really needed to? Ummmmm, hell no! I said (with my eyes). On this day, Hobbit cooperated fully, and the pictures we got out of this visit absolutely knocked the wind out of me.

I was pretty much over the moon and could not wait to show Matt the new prints.

His little feet! Look at those perfect toes!

I can’t help giggling a little about this next one because I have the maturity of a 13 year old boy, but among other things, I was able to ask the tech to show me his little penis since we hadn’t seen that on our previous visit. She kindly obliged. (And don’t worry, kiddo. No one will ever be able to pick you out of a line-up based on this photo.)