Say hello to our little girl

It is with some delight, actually it is more than just some but I am really trying to show some restraint here, that I would like to introduce you to our daughter. You can probably see from the photos below that she is still some way from being able to greet you herself. She is a good 4 months away from being introduced to the world and we can't wait to meet her. Yes, she. Michelle and I are expecting a little girl. A daughter. Daughter. I love using that word. It sounds so right and yet it has an unfamiliarity to it the takes some getting used to. I smile every time I think about her and becoming a daddy. Smile with a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye. It is just so wonderfully confusing.
Michelle is 20 weeks pregnant with our yet to be named daughter. There's that word again - daughter.
Why announce it today and why did we wait for 20 weeks for that matter? Well for starters we were waiting for Thursday's scan. So far this pregnancy has been a bit of a roller coaster ride and we weren't even sure we'd get to this point. Last year we had a miscarriage at 11 weeks which has made us a little gun shy this time around too. I'll write more about the miscarriage some other time because right now we're just doing a little happy dance and we just want to enjoy the moment.
Thursday's ultrasound was the mid-point foetal morphology scan. We've had a couple of earlier ultrasounds and we've seen our little girl before but this time was the first time we've seen her without stressing, too much, about something bad happening. This scan was essentially to confirm for us that everything is progressing normally. And all the measurements were normal. Our little miss average is just that and we couldn't be happier.
For a little over two hours we could see, and enjoy, the 3D view of her face, her beating heart, her hands and feet, her fingers and her toes. Every centimetre of her was thoroughly scanned and measured. She is very active too. She stretches and squats and she rolls over. She raises her arms over head. She pushes, with feet and hands, against the walls of her home. That's why the scan took two hours. Every time the doctor wanted to, say, get pictures of her heart she'd roll over into another position and the doctor would have to start again. Eventually though Dr Tai was able to take all the pictures she needed. For us the first hour was terrifying and nerve wracking but after the doctor reassured us a couple of times that everything was going well we were able to relax and enjoy the best grainy black and white pictures and video we've ever seen.
She is beautiful.