Rainbow, 9 weeks ultrasound

Luckily there is a Perinatal Center a couple of minutes away from my house. It's a lot faster to get to, and there are a lot less people waiting, then at the Perinatal Center at the hospital, so it works out well. (I still have to go to the hospital for MFM appointments though.) The only downside is that there isn't a doctor on-site there, but they have doctors watching the pictures because they all go to the main Perinatal center where there's a doctor on duty all the time.

I really liked the ultrasound tech today. She had actually read my chart so she didn't ask me "is this your first pregnancy?" and "why are you here?" and crap like that. But she also didn't pretend like it never happened, she told me she was sorry we lost our daughter and was asking me what the HELLP pain felt like. I really appreciated it. This center only has 2 techs, and since I'm going back every 4 weeks and then more often later, I'll definitely be seeing her again.

The tech was excited to consider this the "first baby picture" even though it's hardly the first, so I didn't tell her otherwise. The baby was measuring exactly on track, and one day ahead on measurements! Joe and I call this the "shrimp" stage, because the baby looks rather similar to a shrimp.

This is the best "baby-like" picture of the bunch, I think:

And a very shrimp-looking picture:

And one more:

The baby's heart rate was 153 beats per minute.