Our Son

Well, here he is! Two pictures of his profile--head on the right, legs to the left. In the first one he's waving, the second one he's trying to suck on his foot :)


We had a very nice time with the ultrasound tech yesterday. She was very relaxed and funny, and we weren't taking things too seriously, either. Something about doing it all for the second time makes you much more relaxed. As predicted, she asked us right away if we wanted to know the gender, and we said "yes." That was the decision we had come to. So she proceeded to swish around and measure the different things she needed to measure--spine, skull, femur, etc. We saw the stomach and kidneys and little lub-dub of his heart. She showed us the face and watched the arms and legs move around quite a bit (he was very active!) She asked us what we thought it was (Me: boy, Sam: girl) and Sam said "Well, do you have any idea yet?" and she replied "Oh, I'm pretty sure it's a boy." I'm thinking "Have you even looked yet? How can you tell?!?" And as if reading my mind she swished over slightly to show us that yes, in fact, it is a boy. We have a nice picture of his, ahem, "business" with a big circle around it and the label "Gender: Boy" Sam thinks that one's pretty funny.

If you have not had a baby in the last 5 years or so, let me tell you how cool that ultrasound machine is. It is like a big computer, and as the tech moves around she clicks on different points on the baby and measurements are calculated. For example, she took a picture of the top of his skull and clicked on the outside edge on one side and the inside edge on the other and it calculates the gestational age of the baby based on that distance. Then she repeats for other bones, like the spine and the femur. She can also check to see that the heart has 4 chambers and that the eyes/nose/lips are all in the places they should be. It is amazing what they can do and tell you with that fuzzy picture.

Because they measure everything in pregnancy down to the day now, the same goes for estimating baby's age and size. So yesterday the doctor said I was 19 weeks, 5 days but I say I'm 19 weeks, 1 day but the baby averaged out to exactly 20 weeks. So either I'm off (I'm not off) or I'm in for another beastly 9 pounder. Please, God, not again!

All in all we are quite thrilled with this announcement. We would have been happy to have another daughter, but we're happy to have a son. It is a little scary because you start to think "But I know how to take care of a girl--I am a girl--I know girly things!" I'll have to start studying up on dump trucks and dinosaurs, Matchbox cars and mud, hockey skates and how to make that helicopter noise with my mouth...Good thing we've got a manly daddy at our house!