It's a Girl!

We had our ultrasound yesterday and saw a perfect little baby girl! The kids are excited - Sydney maybe slightly more than Jake at the thought of having a baby sister :). My Mom was thrilled to be there with us again.

We saw amazing detail of the inside of the brain and the heart. In the heart we could see the four chambers and the two valves letting blood through with each beat. We saw two little hands and two little feet, a well-formed upper lip (no cleft pallet), the stomach, kidneys, spinal cord, etc. Everything looks great and, based on this ultrasound, the Dr. reduced our odds of a Downs baby from 1 in 260 to 1 in 390. We weren't really worried about that, but it was nice to hear.

The due date based on my last period they report as October 20th, and the due date based on the measurements they took yesterday was October 23rd - so they said the due date will remain the 20th. The good thing about that is it means the baby is actually three days smaller than the norm - so maybe I won't have another 9+ pound baby!!! That will be nice, I think, although there was some comfort in handling a newborn who came out the size of many 3-month-olds! Jake was 9 lbs., 5 ounces and Sydney was 9 lbs., 4 ounces. I still think I'll play it safe an skip buying the newborn sizes in clothes, but we'll see if that turns out to be wise.

A couple of the sonogram pictures are below. I left one out with a front view of the skull where you see the eye and nose sockets and it looks like an alien, and Martin veto'ed posting the one with the private parts :). He's already looking out for his little girl!!

a cute little baby foot

and a profile shot

We are pretty much finished with any kind of tests or checks, except for regular check-ups with our ob-gyn that I described in a previous post - weight, blood pressure & urine checks plus listening to the heartbeat and checking on the size of the baby by measuring my tummy. We go monthly for another couple of months, I believe, then every couple of weeks until the last month when we go weekly. In the next couple of months I will complete a routine glucose screening for gestational diabetes and get a shot of rhogam since I am Rh-. Hopefully that will be the extent of our excitement in this pregnancy! We'll keep you posted...