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Archive for November, 2007

Is it a boy or a girl?

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

First, a warning. There are a couple of loyal readers of OSB that have expressed a desire to not know whether we are having a boy or a girl. For those friends, I want you to know that this post will tell what the gender of the baby is, so if you don’t want to know, then don’t read this entry. I will make an attempt not to comment on the gender in future posts to the best of my ability so that everyone can still continue to read OSB and enjoy.

Having said all of that…now on to the goods. Yesterday, Baby and BM had a visit with the doctor. As you might expect, I went for moral support and to make sure everyone actually did there job rather than asking us to move forward in the drive-thru (but that is another story).

The bottom line is that the visit was a tremendous success. Baby put on quite a little dancing, stretching, and squirming show for us, which causes BM to take a step back thinking that Baby will be as hyperactive as I am. During the 20 minute long sonogram, Baby pushed around and let us examine every part of the body.

In fact, having seen all the amazing twists and turns, maybe now is a good time to start with the parental talk like “My baby is so smart and wonderful because…” Well, maybe not. Maybe I will just get a “My Child Made the A Honor Role at Uterus U” bumper sticker. Or, a friend told me today that I need to get a bumper sticker that says “W - the baby.” Oh, but how I digress.

I gathered that the primary purpose of yesterday’s exam was to check on the growth of Baby and make sure everything was within the expected parameters at this point in the pregnancy. And the good news is that everything was right where it should be according to the doctor. The baby appears to have ten toes and ten fingers. We were told that the umbilical cord was in the proper position, the stomach was the right size, and baby does have a brain :) The spine and heart also looked good. In fact, the baby’s heartbeat was 146 beats per minute which would be a problem for someone my age but for Baby that is apparently a fine heartbeat. The current weight of Baby is 10oz for those keep track.

The sonographer did an excellent job taking us along our crazy ride of looking in and around Baby. She took tons of measurements and plenty of pictures. Then came the moment we had been waiting for. She said, “Would you like to know if you are having a boy or a girl?” The answer came easy to BM and I. But apparently to a significant portion of the population the answer is “No.” My feeling was that waiting till the baby’s birth would be exciting for me, but I wouldn’t be able to share the joy of the surprise with my best friend and wife so, we answered quickly - “Yes.” She pointed and slid the ultrasound sensor around BM’s belly and pointed to a spot on the screen and said, “There it is, there is the little turtle.” As I am prone to do, I began to over think that comment because in my anatomy experience both males and females have parts that might be seen as a turtle poking it’s head out. Luckily for me, and for you my dear readers, she quickly followed with, “You are having a boy.” Both of us were excited to know the answer, but not because we were having a boy, we were excited because we could share the experience of learning the gender while we were both in a completely coherent state. We have wanted to have a child for some time and we are excited to be having one.

The most excited family members to learn the gender would have to be my parents. You see, for BM’s mom, this is a first grandchild so a boy or a girl would be fine with her. But for my parents, this makes number five grandchild and the other four are all girls. So, in an effort not to let them down, we decided we would appease their wishes ;)

Below I have included several images taken during yesterday’s ultrasound. We are especially fond of the Rock On and Surf’s Up signs Baby gave us. Clearly, he knows how to speak both his mother’s and father’s languages.

One last question we keep fielding is about the baby’s name. The quick answer is that we haven’t picked out a name but having found out the gender yesterday, we instantly ruled out about 1/2 of all the possible names we could chose from. Primarily, what we have been doing is maintaining a list of names we won’t use.

Hope everyone enjoys. By the way, I haven’t photoshopped any of these.

Baby’s Profile
Picture 1.jpg

Looking At Us
Picture 2.jpg

Umbilical Cord - The cord is at the top above the spin and the colors show blood moving either toward or away from the ultrasound sensor.
Picture 3.jpg