How to wiggle a baby into place for his first photos

So, Wednesday we were on day 3 with no power, the trains weren't running and taxis were just coming back on the road. In fact, since there were no trains I was calling the taxi company the night before to arrange and secure a pick up to take us all the way to the hospital for this "can't be missed appointment" and I got a recording that they were closed! We went to bed with fingers crossed because, the window for these screening pictures is tight. It's so tight that the day my doctor gave me the number to call and schedule this, I barely got back to work when I saw that I had a voice mail from the hospital with my 2 hour appointment scheduled by the hospital. The appointment has to happen between 11 and 13 weeks or so, and I guess Connecticut is highly fertile keeping them fully booked.

Anyway, the appointment itself was for 2 things, an extensive verbal family history of ethnicity and diseases/ disorders including verifying that Doug and I had not married Kentucky style, being lost lost cousins or something. Part 2 was the specific ultrasound looking for physical manifestations that could point to down syndrome, other chromosome issues and spinal problems if it isn't fused right. We got there with plenty of time in our 18 mile taxi trip to spare and joined the other power outage couples in the waiting area, charging phones and using the internet.

Part 1 was a breeze, we learned that it seems nice Jewish boys who marry nice Jewish girls have the most to fret over with all those recessive genes storming ahead when combined.

Part 2 was exhausting. I thought I just got to lay there and the technician takes her pictures..why do they give you and hour slot? Because it apparently often includes an unplanned dance party for momma for half the appointment. We started out fine, she held the roller still and we could see baby moving arms and legs (everything is there). She took the first few pictures, she has a very specific list of shots she has to get and take measurements from, then she started digging in a bit to try and get baby to "roll over" a bit. No use. She used the roller to jiggle my whole tummy to get him to move (him/her; no sex yet) nothing.  she had me bend my knee, feet on the bed, then had me lift my hips off the bed and told me to shake around..assuring me that this happens a lot, but she has to get this exact profile of the neck to see the fluid and measure the width of it...or else we'll have to come back. No trains, no power, another taxi all the way there. We really didn't want that.

She stops, gives me some juice, tells me to get up and get moving to stir him into a different position and she'll be back in 10 minutes. I jump, and dance while Doug coaches. We get back into place, she looks and starts digging in to get just a tiny bit better angle, still it's not enough. We repeat it all, the hip wiggle in bed; nothing, the 10 minute dance party and I'm exhausted and mad about going through all of this bother today for nothing. We try one more time and she just barely got it, but she got it! And, it looked normal. The last part was a blood test checking for a couple levels of things that would be raised if there were a chromosome issue and we hear on that in 1 week. The county buses started up that day, we learned in the waiting room internet session, so to be frugal on the way home we took the taxi to the New York line and waited for the bus..which was about 25 minutes late..and got us home the 18 miles in about 1 hour 15 min. Lots of traffic lights were out and with no trains there was so much traffic. The car search is on.