Wow

The ultrasound today was intense. And soooo amazing! The technician gave us about 20 printouts from the pics she took and I cannot stop looking at them!
The baby actually looks like a baby in some of them... others, it's a little more alien-like :) I'll try to post some of the pics online later, but we don't have electronic versions right now.
Here's the account of our ultrasound visit.
Brian picked me up at work and proceeded to unload about his crappy morning. Work was not going well. He ranted until we arrived at the doctors office and then agreed not to let it spoil our exciting appointment. And once we got in the office neither of us could stop smiling.
After finally getting called in by the ultrasound technician, we went back to the room and I hiked my pants down and my shirt up ;) The tech put a healthy amount of warm gel on my belly and started looking around with the ultrasound thingy (I think that's the technical term).
Almost immediately she started pointing out the head, the stomach and other parts of the baby. I looked up at the screen and saw only black, gray and white blobs. She started getting pictures of the face and even pointed the eyes, nose and mouth out to me several times. Brian pointed it all out, too. Still I couldn't see what we were looking at. I felt very much like Rachel in the Friends episode when she couldn't see the baby in the ultrasound and kept pretending, "Oh, now I see it" ... but of course, still didn't.
I was really starting to get upset when the technician finally switched over to some 4-D imaging. Now that the baby's face finally took shape, I could see what she was talking about. It was incredible.
We checked out the face from a bunch of angles, the legs, feet, arms and hands. She counted 10 fingers and 10 toes! And she checked out all of the major organs.
Her final assessment was that everything looks good. Just like it's supposed to at this point.
Brian was hoping (and hinted several times during the appointment) that we'd "accidentally" find out the sex. But the tech mostly stayed away from the mid-section. So we still have a surprise.
And I may be biased, but I think he/she is the most beautiful cantaloupe-sized, alien-like baby I've ever seen!