Tuesday, October 5, 2010

May I Please Introduce...

 BabyName Ticker

That's right! Against both of our suspicions, and the guesses of most of our friends... we are having a little GIRL! Ms. Lillian (Lily) Louise will be joining us sometimes in late February. And her father is currently out shopping for a shotgun! Hehe.

Our anatomy scan appointment went beautifully. I was a borderline basket case, but that's pretty much par for the course for me right now. Jay picked me up at the office on Friday and we headed out to grab a bite to eat. When we were pretty much done at Chick-fil-A, I realized that somehow I had grossly over estimated how long it would take us to get to the office, and therefore, we were going to be about a half an hour or so early for the appointment. I decided that we could either sit in the car, or we could sit in the waiting room at the midwife's office and hey, it's always better to be early rather than late, right? Who knows... they might be able to take us early. Well, I was right. The person with the appointment in front of us had not shown for their appointment so we went almost right back.

The ultrasound tech introduced herself and asked if we wanted to find out the gender if she was able to determine it during the scan. We told her we would like to find out assuming the little one cooperated, and we got started. The first thing I noticed was that she kept the ultrasound gel in a warmer, woohoo!!! She put the ultrasound wand on my stomach and... there was our baby! It was quite amazing, although I will say she did look like an alien! But she's our alien! :-) I was initially worried that she wasn't moving around, but apparently she takes after her father and is quite chill. ::fingers crossed that she doesn't inherit her mother's neuroses!::

It was so hard to stifle the impulse to ask the tech if everything looked ok. I know that they are not supposed to tell us stuff like that since regardless of how many years they have been conducting scans they are technically only trained to conduct the scan and not make any conclusions based on their observations. And I didn't want to put her in an awkward position. Now when I watch the video of the scan (yes they gave us a DVD of the entire scan, how cool is that!), I see that Lily was moving around I just couldn't see it between the screen being on the other side of the exam room and the wand moving around.

One of the first things the tech did was locate the placenta which is anterior. This means that the placenta has attached to the front of my uterus, which isn't a problem at all. Thank goodness it hadn't attached over my cervix or we would have had a problem (and I'd have most likely been experiencing bleeding, which I've thankfully not dealt with). But because it is in the front, it explains why I haven't been feeling movement like my Bestie is and like other girls I've talked with. That was very nice to know. It put my mind at ease as far as why I hadn't felt much, and it made it ok to just kick back and know that everything is ok and I'll feel her when I feel her, which will probably be a few more weeks.

It was amazing to watch the tech locate and label all the different parts.  We saw arms and legs, the heart, stomach, kidneys, and the brain. The heart beat was beautiful and right at 152 bpm. She is weighing in at about 10 ozs which is right on schedule and she's measuring about a day ahead of my estimated due date (EDD) which shows that I had a textbook cycle the month we got pregnant. I began to worry a little bit when the tech started zeroing in on the sex organs. Her exact words were, "Well, he or she is just sitting crisscross apple sauce for us right now!" And she had her hands between her legs covering everything up. Since she was channelling her daddy's Prozac-on-vacation demeanor, and being so chill, it took a while and some prodding by the tech's wand to get her to move at all.  I kept watching the screen to see if I could see and kept thinking her leg was a pee-pee. I keep thinking, "WOW! That's one big pee-pee!". I was trying not to hold my breath, but I knew if she didn't cooperate then we would be Team Green until she was born. (Team Green is the term used by people who are not finding out the sex until delivery day. It's as opposed to Team Pink and Team Blue.) I also knew that since determining the sex isn't a medical necessity, we wouldn't get another go at it since our insurance only pays for one ultrasound per pregnancy unless medically necessary.

But eventually she let us look. The tech paused the image and asked us if we were ready to find out. As soon as she said that I saw it. The three bright white lines that are indicative of a girl baby! I about passed out! I couldn't believe my eyes! There was just no way! We were having a boy... I just knew it! Everyone else knew it! No matter how much I wanted a girl... I had already made peace with having a boy!
And now I was getting my girl! I cried, Jay almost cried, we both sat there in shock! I just kept saying, "I can't believe we're having a girl!"

The tech finished up with the last few images she needed to get and I got cleaned up. That ultrasound gel is a mess! And the tech said, in a voice that implied that she wasn't really supposed to tell us, that as far as she saw everything looked just fine. Yay! We were ushered into the exam room to wait for the midwife and Jay and I just started laughing... and hugging. WE ARE HAVING A GIRL! We sent out the text messages and continued laughing as we started fielding the replies. After a few minutes the midwife came in and told us that everything looked great and we had a health baby girl on the way! It was one of the most amazing moments of my life.

After the appointment was over, we went out shopping to celebrate. We didn't get much, but I did pick up a couple pairs of socks that look like little Mary Jane shoes and a onesie that says "Mommy + Daddy = Me". That evening we met up with some friends and family for dinner to celebrate Jay's birthday and our little Lily. The boys spent half the night talking about the best types of gun to scare off potential boyfriends and the engraver Jay can get to engrave the boys names on the side of the gun. Jay said he thinks he'll put it in his will that when he dies Lily will then be allowed to date. My mom laughed about the fact that when it was her daughter dating (me), Jay had no problems with it, but now that it's going to be HIS daughter it's going to be a different story.

It's been a bit of an adjustment getting used to knowing there's a she inside. I didn't realize how often I had been using "he" before. There's something about knowing the sex that really makes everything feel very real and that's been a little overwhelming. It's like, I always knew there was a baby in there but I couldn't really visualize it. Now it's real. We are having a baby! We are going to be parents! We are going to forever carry the responsibility of another life! WTF WERE WE THINKING!!!

I've always known these things, but I've been so focused on getting pregnant for so long that it's almost like I forgot that after being pregnant you become a mommy. It's like what happens to brides sometimes when they get so focused on the wedding that they sometimes forget about the marriage. The responsibility of bringing another human being into this world is overwhelming! But the truth is, I'd be worried if we weren't a little intimidated by the task before us. I know we'll make mistakes, and I know it'll be hard, but I think we are up for the challenge.

Hurry up and get big Ms. Lily. Mommy and Daddy can't wait to meet you!