Beautiful Boy!

It's a BOY!!!! Andy and I are overjoyed that we were able to see our beautiful baby boy today at our ultrasound! The lady that did the ultrasound was able to tell right away that it was indeed a boy- I guess that there was no question of that as soon as she looked. The baby was looking developmentally healthy- everything looked great. This ultrasound was a little different from the last one because the baby is much bigger now at 19 weeks- they were looking at individual parts and organs and doing their measurements rather than looking at the entire baby. It was a little confusing for me as a first time mom because I was expecting to see the entire baby all at once just like the last time, just more in detail. This time it was looking at him in segments. I asked a ton of questions to make sure I was understanding what we were looking at. The baby was down so it was hard to get a clear look at times, but we did see the heart which was SO COOL because we could see all 4 chambers beating at once. WOW!!! The bones were also neat and the spine because they were so well defined. He even did a somersault once and showed us his little rear end. That was funny because his little feet fanned out- Andy and I agreed that was a decent little flip turn that he did for his daddy. Although we were excited to find out that we are definitely having a boy, we were a little disappointed this time because we could not see the baby in 3D mode, which was the highlight of the last ultrasound. Since the baby was down, we could only see the top of his head. I thought that she could have tried a little longer to look, but the ultrasound tech was convinced that it would be a waste of time and flipped the machine off within 10 seconds, which did cause me some tears. But we were spoiled with awesome pictures the last time, but we were able to determine the gender today, so we are focusing on that. I'm posting the 2 pictures that we got even though they are hard to see and not very clear at all. One is of his head and torso- you can really see the ribcage and spine really well. The other one is a straight on shot of his head and torso- the arms are up near his ears. To me I can see the arm bones really well and see the left side/right side of the brain, even though the face is a little hard to make out.

We are just excited to finally know what we're having and looking forward now to referring to our son by his name and gender rather than just "baby" or "he or she". Andy is really over the moon about the thought of having a boy. He's wondering how soon you can bring a little boy up into a tree stand! I did have a dream that I was having a boy last week, but I had no clear cut feeling. Andy and I also feel fortunate because we have had a boy name picked out since day one and were struggling with girl names. We should still pick out a girl name just in case, but it won't be with too much urgency. I'm told there is no question he is a boy. Now he'll be able to wear the Yamaha beanie that I bought for him at a rummage sale over the weekend. A friend of mine and I went to the Mothers of Multiples sale 2 days before the ultrasound. Terrible timing to really shop, but I did pick up a few things that were boyish. Auntie Joni is coming up for a visit this weekend and I'm sure we'll do a little shopping! Thanks be to God- it's a healthy baby boy!!!!