Week 18 and the BIG ultrasound!!

        Week 18 has been an exciting one.  Not only have I been able to take some big steps towards job opportunities, but we had our BIG ultrasound on Monday.

       Everyone was excited by the big snow we got on Sunday night/Monday morning... except for us.  We were scheduled for our ultrasound at 9:45 and got a call around 7:30 that it was canceled due to bad weather.  I have to admit that though we were excited about finding out Little Bean's gender, I was also pretty anxious about what it would reveal about the baby's health.  

      Jeff sweetly texted our nurse, one of our friends, and asked her to let us know if they could fit us in. A little while later we got a call- "come in at 10:00, though you may have to wait a while... "  There was much rejoicing :)  Some a few GF pancakes later, with 40oz of water and reading material in tow- we made our way through the snow to Hendersonville.  Thankfully, aside from our neighborhood the roads were fine.  Unfortunately I counted on waiting a little too much and had only had 20oz of the water by the time we arrived.  We were taken right back to the ultrasound room and so it began.

      The tech asked if we wanted to know the gender and when we said yes she started looking around a bit, zooming in, and then announced to us:

You are having a little girl!

We both giggled and cried.  The tech said she had seen it right away, but wanted to ask first and then show us proof before telling us.  Jeff asked if she was sure it wasn't just a bashful little boy.  The tech laughed and told him that if it was a bashful boy, then he had girl parts! She then typed girl on the screen with an arrow- probably a pic our little lady won't love to see later on.  She was very cooperative though! 

      We then went through the process of looking at arms, legs, head, kidneys, heart, brain... taking pictures and measuring.  We saw some toes wiggling, and the arm moving over her face some.  My lack of over-hydrating made it a little tough the get some of the pictures, but as far as we could tell the tech found every part she was looking for.  We'll go back in two weeks to go over the results with our doctor.  We both spent the 40 minutes with our eyes glued to the screen, I had tears leaking out basically throughout, and probably said "wow!" a million times.  I love ultrasounds! 

      After we finished we announced to our nurse and the office that we were having a baby girl! As we left we just put our arms around each other and giggled down the hall, in the elevator, through the parking lot.  We then spent the next 30 minutes in the car calling our parents etc...  That was so fun to share the news. 

We both agree that it makes it feel so much more real to know that out baby is a her.  She has a gender, and now we can better envision what life is going to be like after June comes.  So exciting!