Monday, March 21, 2011

Lesson #1, Baby: Modesty Is A Virtue

"Porkchop" - 18 weeks 3 days (profile)
Today I had my BIG sonogram.  The first question from anyone who knew about today's appointment was, "Are you going to find out the baby's sex"?  Proudly, I would answer, "No".  Why would I respond this way, "proudly"?  Well, proud that I was confident in myself to wait until the child was born. And, proud that I was choosing to go against the trend to know the baby's sex prior to its birth.  To me, finding out the sex of your baby was the equivalent (on a grander scale, I guess) of peeking at your Christmas presents before Christmas morning.  Although David really wanted to know the sex of the baby, he was willing to let Mama-Dirtyfoot have her way and wait out the pregnancy.

Say "Cheese"! - Face view
I have attached a few snaps of today's sonogram and labeled the images.  A few things came out of the day...

1) First, and most important....all indicators point to this baby being healthy.  Today's sonogram was very detailed.  They looked at everything - brain, heart, stomach, bladder, kidney, spine, etc.  They took various measurements and everything in the "growth chart" range was smack dab in the middle of the range.  All a good sign.

Porkchop's hand to face
2) Second, we discovered that Madeline wasn't as clairvoyant as we originally assumed.  Despite not wanting to know the sex of the baby, this little one was......oh, let's just say not exactly the most modest fetus during a photo shoot.  The baby was a wiggle worm (amazing I couldn't feel much of the movement that was going on - just a matter of time).  At one point, the baby was positioned in a way that its rear end was facing the camera.  It was a perfect position to see and measure one of its femurs.  After the technologist took the measurements she clicked the computer to continue taking more images and the baby had shifted so that the baby was almost mooning us.  It was a perfect shot to get a look at both femurs, looking like two parallel lines......with "dangly parts" in between.  I am certainly not a trained eye in the world of sonograms but without a doubt I knew what I was looking at.  YEP, IT'S A BOY!  I asked the sono tech, (who had tried to quickly move away the image), "Am I looking at what I think I am looking at"?  She responded, "Are you *asking* me"?  I knew by her response and intonation  that I was right.  David all of a sudden tuned into the gist of my line of questioning and then asked the tech, "Is that part of the umbilical cord"?  The tech responded, "Yes" and then she winked at me.  I felt bad for the sonogram tech.  She was sort of in a tough spot because although I told her that I didn't want to know the sex, "Porkchop" moved to show off the family jewels.  I could've not asked for confirmation of what was *so obvious*, but what would be the point of that?  But my "confirmation question" had to make the sono tech feel like she was in a tough spot. I knew what I was seeing...but I couldn't have David not know.  So, I asked again. The "are you *asking* me?" response was the same. And so I told the sono tech that I pretty much figured it out (it really was obvious) so I gave her the go ahead to confirm what I was looking at......and with a simple nod to her head we knew that we were expecting a boy.  (A) Sooooo happy that "Porkchop" is looking healthy (B) soooo wishing he kept his legs shut so that I could've been surprised after labor.  Once the news was out in the open, the sonogram tech was free to explore the images.  "Porkchop" was more than happy to show off "his stuff".  The images (and no I didn't include any of these on the blog) screamed "boy".  There is no mistaking the fact that Madeline will have a baby brother.  After the sonogram, a doctor reviewed the images and took a few more.  Even the doctor said, "There is no mistaking that this is a lad".

Our own little Miracle - 3-D shot of face
3) Finally, we told Madeline that Mama got more pictures of the baby in her tummy while she was in school.  I said to Madeline, "You know how girls have one body part that is different from boys?"  She responded, "Uh-huh. Boys have a penis and girls have a "china".  I continued, "Well, the doctor was able to see the baby's body part to know if it was a girl or a boy".  After discussing that the doctor saw the baby's penis so we know the baby is a boy, Madeline was downright hysterical at the fact that we were talking about penises and "chinas

3 comments:

Mary S. said...

OMG!!! First congrats on a boy!!! Boy (no pun intended), do I have a wardrobe for him. And, secondly, Can Maddy get any funnier? She is just too cute!!! China, LOL!!!
I just love the blog. It makes me laugh so much, although I must say this one made me shed a couple tears (of joy, of course).

Amy said...

Thanks, Mary! I have you on my calendar for tomorrow. I'll give ya a call....

Unknown said...

YAY! That's way exciting!