We went to the perinatologists yesterday for a “First Trimester Genetic Screening Test” which involves a small amount of blood and the coolest ultrasound so far.

Officially, they are looking at the “nuchal fold” — how much fluid is in the back of the baby’s neck when it is between 10-13 weeks of age. From this, they can tell with an 80-90% accuracy rate, whether or not the baby has Down’s Syndrome.

Also officially, I am a high risk pregnancy, because I will be 35 by the time Lil Smudge arrives.

Unofficially — the official results take a week — the doctor thinks things look good.

We could see the most amazing things on the monitor while the doctor ran a little mouse-looking device over my belly. There’s REALLY a tiny little being in there, and it doesn’t look like a smudge any more — it looks like a baby. Among the cool things we could see:

* The mouth opening and closing
* The heartbeat (145 bpm)
* Tiny little feet
* Tiny little fingers
* A nose

Also, we have an acrobat, but a shy acrobat!

Smudge waved and kicked, and turned around completely. The only direction it didn’t look was towards my belly, where we could have gotten a glimpse of the face. The closest we got was profile. We think it might be taking after my Dad, who hates having his picture taken.

But it was AMAZING to see. I still can’t feel anything, and if you don’t know that I’m pregnant, you could still look at me and just think I’m a little chubby. But through the magic of technology, we could see the amazing development of the 7cm little one growing inside my body.

In slightly unsettling news, Lil Smudge is already big for it’s age. Not enough that they’re going to change the due date, but Smudge is 3 days ahead of predicted development. Since The Donor was a big guy (6′3″/210), I suspect I’m having a big baby.

It is time to get a scanner so we can share the cool pictures they let us take home. One of our “technical advisors” is visiting next week, so hopefully it won’t be long. Actually, two of our technical advisors are visiting next week. That could produce even more interesting results….