19 Weeks...

The ultrasound!

What can I say about it? I loved every second of it and could have watched our sweet baby for much longer; the boys enjoyed it for about 5 minutes and then kept asking when it would be over. :)

When Josiah and David first saw this image...


...they said it looked like a pirate.

This view of the spine...
...prompted them to say it looked like we are having a dinosaur.

And this image of the face (with the right hand by the right eye and the left arm stretched straight up by the head)...
...made them say, "It's Gollum!" (from Lord of the Rings). Lovely.

Here are the images I like the best: the arms and hands (thanks for flexing for us, Baby, and showing off your muscles!)...
...the legs and feet (in the picture on the right below, you can actually count all the toes of one of the precious little feet)...

...and, of all things, an ear sticking out from the head. This was a new view to me; I don't remember seeing a picture quite like this from any of my other ultrasounds. In the picture, we can see the back of the baby; it's lying on its left side looking away from us with the right shoulder visible at the top. The little arrow is pointing to a protrusion from the head which is the ear! Imagine: my baby weighs about 11 ounces, and yet we can already see the ear. :)

And the big news is...

IT'S....

STILL A SURPRISE!!!! :)

Our desire to leave the gender undetected was honored by the ultrasound tech (despite Jeff's earlier dream) so, for the first time in our lives, we will approach delivery without knowing who we'll be welcoming!

I'm REALLY glad that we're doing it this way, but I have to admit that in a moment of weakness in the waiting room yesterday morning, I did ask Jeff if maybe we should go ahead and find out. He rather forcefully vetoed that suggestion. :) He said he thinks it will help me go through labor and delivery if I don't know! We'll see about that... ;)

The baby was healthily active during the ultrasound (and I certainly feel lots of movement these days), and the measurement was right on: 19 weeks, 4 days. My weight was up to 159 which the midwife (Ann) was actually happy to see because it had dropped a tiny bit before my last appointment. My blood pressure was fine, something like 126 over 70, although I didn't write it down and I don't remember for sure.

Probably the most welcome news was that my placenta has shifted upwards (and will probably continue to migrate up and not move further down), so that was a relief after the anxiety early on about the subchorionic hematoma.

Yesterday I was thinking about how very grateful I am to live in this modern age when we can have such amazing glimpses of our little ones, long before they are born. I don't understand exactly how ultrasound works, but I have an immense appreciation for it!

After we got home yesterday, I told Jeff that now it feels like the wait will be FOREVER until this baby is born! With our other ones, there was a flurry of preparation that "needed" to be made after we found out the gender; but this time, I don't really have anything special to do. After we move Tobin's clothing out of the nursery and graduate him to another room, I can't even start putting baby stuff into the dresser and armoire (like I enjoyed so much when pregnant with Tobin). How am I going to fill my time until mid-July? ;)

~ 18 weeks, 6 days...with Misty Myers at our Friday fellowship potluck
~ 19 weeks, 1 day...on the floor with Tobin, that adorable happy little sweetheart!