So we went to Beijing this weekend for our 6 month appointment and decided to make the best of it. We arrived around lunch on Thursday, heading to the Silk Market (that wasn't too crowded) where we bought me a pair of Abercrombie comfy pants, a LESportSac (which can zip up into wallet size), and a new silk journal all for less than $20. And Nathan bought a poker set and new wallet. After this we headed to the hotel where we napped for a bit and then went to have a late Valentine's Day dinner at Outback steakhouse. YUM!
On Friday we woke up and headed towards the hospital where we had breakfast at Peter's (a tex mex restaurant) where I had biscuits and gravy with real fresh orange juice and Nathan and I split this HUGE cinnamon roll. It was super yummy. We then became a little nervous because the hospital called and said the doctor I was supposed to meet had an emergency surgery so could I come another time. When I revealed to her that we lived in Shenyang (a 4 hour fast train trip) and needed to come today she quickly set me up with another doctor for 11:30 instead of 10:30. I headed over to Jenny Lou's which is a Western Grocery Store and bought Mac n' cheese, Reeses, push pops (I just had the urge to buy these!), lucky charms cereal, cinnamon crisp cereal, halls cough drops, and other things and then headed back to Peter's where my husband was doing some MDiv work. We waited around and then finally headed to the hospital which was just a 5 minute walk from Peter's.
We got there super early (10:30) and expected to wait but they took us right in and did my appointment right away. We also were put on the schedule to do a gestational diabetes test (which I haven't gotten the results back for yet). The doctor said she wanted me to try and exercise more and avoid eating unless I was hungry because I have gained weight very quickly and we do not want our baby to be too big or delivery could be problematic. They were very quick and very thorough. All the nurses learned my name and showed me around. They were even offering to show us a delivery room but none were available at that time. Then came the moment we were waiting for, the ultrasound.
We went into a room with an ultrasound technician who spoke English (YAY!) and as she did the ultrasound, that I could actually see for the first time, she pointed out the head, spine, arms and legs. The baby was moving quite a bit and it was neat to see that as well as feel it. We asked if they would tell us the gender since we couldn't tell from the last visit and they were able to see because our little one cooperated beautifully.
We are having a baby girl. Nathan is a little nervous since he has never had sisters and doesn't know the first thing about little girls but we were both super excited. I even started to cry. It is just great to finally know and it was hard to see so many friends who already knew their baby's gender while we had to wait longer. So here are some pictures of our sweet little girl whose name is staying anonymous until she graces us with her presence. I will warn you, unlike the cute ultrasound pics that you often see ours is a little different. They were measuring bones and what not so our baby sort of looks like the terminator :-( However, we were excited to see the face structure and to find out that everything looked great.
So above are pictures of her head. You can see the eyes and mouth and nose, which is so cool. After the ultrasound I guess she was showing us how much she did not like being squirmed around because she pushed along the top part of my belly so it looked like a round dome. The nurse just laughed.
Afterthoughts:
I can now say that I am a little more confident about giving birth in China. It was great to meet the staff, who was super nice, and see the facility, which is super beautiful. They assured me that they would meet whatever needs I had and answer any questions. They also through in a candlelight dinner, family picture and manicure or pedicure after delivery...that sounds amazing!
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