Baby McMahon

Alright. Here's the post all of our friends have been waiting for. This past Monday, Shannon and I went to an ultrasound place in UTC for her mid-term ultrasound. At first I was really skeptical. Our insurance probably won't be covering as much of the ultrasound as it does other services and I was pretty upset about this. Money doesn't really flow free with me (but you already knew that!). But I gotta tell you. Wow! Their equipment and professionalism was awesome. It was a great experience. If any of you care to do so, you're welcome view the VHS recording of the ultrasound at anytime; just let us know.

So, without further ado, I will turn this blog over to Shannon who will tell you how she feels and you can enjoy all the pictures along the way. God is great! Hallelujah!!!! ~Mike

Our last appointment was just before Christmas. According to the doctor and many of the books that I have perused, the mother can start to feel the baby move around 16-20 weeks. I was hoping to feel it early and wanted to feel kicking by Christmas, which came during my 16th week. Christmas came and went and no kicking. Weeks 17, 18, and 19 came and went.
no kicking. Week 20 came and still no kicking. Now I was getting a bit nervous. Was our baby okay in there? I voiced my concerns to Michael and we kept holding our hands on my belly hoping to feel movement. Sometimes I would feel sensations in my abdomen that felt like gas bubbles, but I wasn't sure if maybe these were the "flutterings" other women had told me about. A week before our appointment, I asked a woman at my church to pray for me and the baby. She and some other women did so, and I was reminded that God loves and cares for this child even more than I do. This child's health is in His hands. I made it through the next week and finally this Monday had my fears completely done away with.

Not only is our baby alive in there, it has all twenty of its fingers and toes and all four of its heart chambers, is growing according to plan, and is performing its daily activities of standing on its head (she/he is definitely his/her mother's child) , chewing on its amniotic fluid, and sucking its little thumb. You can imagine my delight at seeing the first signs of our baby's personality! The baby was literally turned on top of it's head, with it's feet up near my right rib cage, it's butt curled up around my right lower abdomen, and it's head resting near my left lower pelvic bone. The ultrasound technician had to poke and prod it and turn me on my side to get a good shot of it's face. But, man, with that 4-D camera did he get a good shot! We could actually see the baby moving it's jaw up and down, screwing up it's face, and putting its thumb in its mouth. The technician was even able to check its upper lip for any clefts.

Michael was curious to see if the baby is missing any of its lumbar vertebrae like he and his dad are, so the technician isolated the spine for us and we tried to count them. They seem to all be there. The brain was also checked and the length of the main bone structure. The baby is now a whopping 9 1/2 inches in length. In the end, the technician claimed that according to what he could see, we have a very good looking baby (in terms of health and completeness...it still rather looks like an alien!). All in all, it was quite an amazing and relieving experience.

Afterwards, Michael and I discussed that we had both been surprised that our baby is healthy. Oh, we of little faith. God has given us this child, and yet we keep waiting for calamity to strike.
We get robbed of a lot of our joy because we are concentrating so much on the what-ifs. We confessed all this to God and asked Him to give us more faith. I think that we are going to need it with our new job titles (mommy and daddy! we are going to be mommy and daddy to some person, some little person and eventually some big person!). I've heard that the potential to worry never goes away for a parent and often only increases as your child gets older and has more freedom and responsibility. But I am confident that "God will supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory," and as far as I know, He is pretty rich.