the big one!

so, i forgot to scan the ultrasound pictures from this morning. i'll post those tomorrow or so.

to sum it up: it was wonderful to see our little person, and it was just as awful as i thought it would be. worse, even. the joke in my family is that i have a bladder the size of a thimble (exacerbated by road trips, of course). unfortunately this was confirmed by the u/s tech, who told me, "wow, you're really full!" then while i was in the bathroom she told brian i have a very small bladder, and that i didn't need to have drank the full 32 ounces of water. i could have been fine with half of that, she said. so our regular checkup before the u/s, the wait, and the beginning of the u/s were pretty awful. and just think, labor is even more fun than that! such things to come!

on the wonderful side: i laid down on the table for our checkup and the doctor said, "my, you're distended!" which i guess is a nice way of saying i have a good pregnant belly. she also listened to baby's heartbeat which was 140 beats per minute. mil thinks it will be a boy because last time the heartbeat was 120 bpm, and apparently slower means boy and faster means girl. so i guess this throws that whole theory out the window. or maybe we're having a hermaphrodite.

we waddled (well, i did) down to radiology where i saw the line to register and almost cried. and then waited, and waited, and waited some more. we were early for the appointment, hoping they could get us in early, so every second felt like an eternity to me and my full bladder. and i hate needles, but i told brian i'd rather get another couple blood draws than do this u/s again.

the u/s tech got some great photos and man are they thorough. she took about 40-45 minutes to do the full scan and they check for everything. at one point she mentioned that she was trying to check spot's lip but he/she had its hands over its face. i think our little person was a little sleepy too, because spot was not as wiggly as it has been in the past. this u/s was later in the morning than our usual appointments and in the last two weeks i have been able to feel him/her moving around and kicking earlier in the mornings. (conveniently this morning, right on my full bladder!) she also was able to tell the sex, but she didn't tell us. she said she was 99.9% sure, and we have the answer and a picture of the "parts" in a sealed envelope to be opened on christmas.

so we're on pins and needles for the next few days. on the bright side, the u/s tech said everything looks perfectly healthy and spot seems to be developing normally. we haven't had anything come back that would give us any cause for concern, so it seems like we have a perfect little package in there.

on a slightly different note: the doctor said we never heard anything about the chromosome test because everything came back fine. i'm a girl! i have 46 chromosomes, all in the right places. (they refer to me as 46xx.) no evidence of a translocation. i'm perfectly normal, so brian has to find some other excuse for my crazy.

we are at: 20 weeks.