Baby is a....

Today we went in for New Baby's first ultrasound. We're very happy going the home birth-midwife route, and insurance doesn't cover that, so it doesn't cover full diagnostic ultrasounds either. Luckily, occasionally our local Pregnancy Resource Center puts out a call for ultrasound models to train their nursing staff. The ultrasound is free (!) they just can't medically diagnose anything, including gender. It's great if you just want to make sure there is indeed a baby (instead of a pterodactyl or something) in there, that they have all their limbs and vital organs, and they're moving around in a healthy way. Since that's mostly what we want to do, it's a great fit for us. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at reading ultrasounds. ("Oh, is that it's little eye? It's the stomach, you say?')

I remember when we had Diana's done around 20 weeks and the tech was repeatedly scanning the Area in Question and asking "Does that look like anything to you?" "Can you see anything that's there or missing...?" No, I couldn't. Joey thought afterward that he saw a distinct lack of anything, and he was right. The same thing happened at Liam's ultrasound and he definitely thought Something was there. Later on, to satisfy my curiosity (in a very expensive way), we had a full diagnostic ultrasound done at the local hospital and confirmed that Liam was our Liam boy. This time, Joseph wasn't able to make it, so I didn't have any help. In fact, I had two small people in the room gleefully competing to make the loudest dinosaur scream, which is the opposite of help.

(Oh my gosh, Nichole, we don't even care about your rambling. We're just here to see whether you're having a boy or a girl. JUST TELL US IF IT'S A BOY OR A GIRL.)

I have an oversharing problem, and I warn you all it's just going to get worse as this pregnancy goes on. Anyway, when the Area in Question was scanned in passing a couple of times, I really thought I distinctly saw Something. However, as the nurse pointed out later, the cord was showing up very strongly, so I might have been seeing the cord passing over the Area in Question and connecting to the body. When I asked if they could just scan that general area again for my sake, though I knew they couldn't tell me anything, they came up from the underside, as if the baby was sitting on a glass table and we were looking up from underneath. Honestly, I didn't see anything there. So who knows, maybe we're having another girl. Rather than spend $200 and a trip to Portland to get a diagnostic ultrasound when we're pretty sure the baby is healthy otherwise, I think we're just going to leave this one a surprise. We're already prepared either way. We're not hoping for one more than another. I think Liam would probably appreciate having a little brother to rough house around with (Heaven help us all) more than Diana would enjoy having a little sister, but I know I'd have fun dressing up another little girl. (Moms of girls know they have a way better clothing/accessory selection.) We already have a short list of boy names, so we'll pick some girl names and be surprised in late January, I guess!

Baby in profile at 21 weeks! Can you see the little heart? It was beating at 140 bpm.

Another baby profile shot.