It's a...BABY!

The ultrasound tech cannot be certain of the baby's gender. She saw three white lines, which makes her think it is a girl. However, our baby was being "stubborn" and would not turn over. So the tech did not get a good glimpse of the area. She cannot be certain that there is not male genitalia there. She did see what she believes is female genitalia (the three white lines), but said that she can't give us a guarantee.

On a better note, everything looks good. The tech measured EVERYTHING. The head, the arm, the leg, the tummy. She said the baby is 13 oz, and this means if we took baby out and stretched it out the baby would be about 13 inches long. But we won't be doing that. She also looked at the blood flow of the umbilical cord and placenta. There was also plenty of amniotic fluid for baby. Everything looked good and she said her measurments were consistent with our current due date.

She viewed the heart several times. She said she could see all 4 chambers, and we could all deffinately see it beating. The heart beat was 153 per minute. But she didn't see everything she wanted to about the heart. Our baby was very comfortably laying face down on its placenta and absolutely refused to turn over.

We have six pictures of the face, but they aren't great. The view was difficult for the tech. When she did have a good view, baby put its hand infront. Being quite shy. Actually baby was irritated by the whole ultrasound process after a few minutes. At one point we watched as the baby kicked out at me repeatedly (I didn't feel this). It was very amusing for Adam and I. The tech wanted to see details of the face more clearly too. She couldn't see anything that looked bad, but she couldn't get a clear look at the lip.

The profile (side) view. This is my favorite. Baby's little nose and hand can be seen.

A view of the face. The hand and torso can also be seen here.

The tech said she was going to recommend we come back for another ultrasound. She left and about five minutes later the doctor (not ours, we were at a different office) came in. He congratulated us, said everything looked good. He joked that the baby was very stubborn, so for this reason he thinks it's a girl. Then he told us that our doctor wanted to know that everything was progressing well and the baby looked healthy. He said that everything was good and he would send the report today so that she would have plenty of time to review it before our appointment next Wednesday. Then he said he would like us to come back in 4-6 weeks for another ultrasound. He hoped that the baby would be more cooperative, and a bit larger, so they could see everything better.

So we set another appointment for four weeks from now. I kind of wanted to wait the six weeks, but my track break is just finishing up at the end of four weeks. So we set it up for my last work day off so I wouldn't have to miss another day of work.

All told we were very excited to see our baby on the TV screen. The ultrasound was very thorough and quite neat. I didn't really want to go again because we'll have to pay for it again. But it will be good to confirm that everything is good and possibly get a better assurance of boy or girl.

~Amber

It has been so long

From Adam:
Our Christmas was wonderful. I don't think we took any pictures in the morning, but we did videotape the majority of the morning. We got the cat a toy that she enjoys swatting at as we dangle it for her. One of my favorite gifts came from my parents-in-law; it is a kill a watt. It measures the amount of electricity devices use while in use, idle, and off. It also tells you how much voltage is running through an electrical socket. It also automatically logs the amount of kilowatts used per hour. I found out that our dishwasher uses 1.09 kilowatts in 2 hours and 19 minutes with the drying cycle on. Next time, I will measure how much it uses without the drying cycle. We are still putting away Christmas decorations and trying to get things back to normal. We have good news. We are going to go to Summerlin Hospital on Jan. 22, 2010 for our second Ultrasound to find out the gender of our little one. We are excited to find out. Then we can focus on names and think about a single gender.