today was our “20 week” ultrasound appointment, which happened to fall at 19 weeks. even better is that it happened to fall over my nephews’/niece’s spring break so we got to have some family in town for the excitement. we invited my sissy and niece to come with us so we could share the magic of the ultrasound.

the first one was awesome because it was it was our first time seeing the turkey and because of the shock of finding out it was four weeks older than we thought.  this one was incredible because there was just so much more to see, I got to feel the movement while seeing it, and the technology was incredible.  the technician was great.  she walked us through all the parts we were looking at.  she spent a lot of time trying to get us good, clear shots of the turkey’s face, which wasn’t easy because the turkey was praying the whole time with it’s hands folded in front of its face.

look at our precious little turkey!

and then she started showing us 3d images, which I wasn’t expecting at all.  look at that beautiful face!!!  you can see the one hand holding the other arm right in front of the face.

3d imaging... how cool is that?

she showed us the four chambers of the heart, which were all beating very healthily.  she then explained how they estimate the weight by taking cross-section views of the head and abdomen to get their diameters and then the length of the femur and they plug those measurements into some algorithm that comes up with a fetal weight… our turkey weighs about 9 oz or just over half a pound.  the books all say about 7 oz by now so hubby’s concerns about my weight seem to be unfounded.  the turkey is healthy and growing great.  all of the measurements, including amniotic fluid and such, led them to the conclusion that everything is well on track.  praise God!

the most exciting thing, though, was that the turkey was not shy…

blue cupcakes? that can only mean...

it's a boy!!!!!

the first time she tried for a between-the-leg angle, it was a little iffy but I immediately saw a quick flash of something that I was sure was a giveaway.  sure enough, she labeled it “boy stuff”!!!  hubby missed the obvious flash I saw and was dubious since the image she was getting was a little more cross-legged and he couldn’t make out what she was seeing.  after doing some of her mandatory measurements, she shook my belly a bit and tried again and he was definitely more cooperative this time.  when she got the angle shown above, hubby had no problem seeing that we are, indeed, having a baby boy!  I must have cried three times during the ultrasound and at least three more after.  we are going to have a little boy and he’s going to be born right around hubby’s/ggpa’s birthday… it’s just beautiful.

hubby took video of the experience but we haven’t gotten it downloaded yet.  actually it’s two videos because my camera, which showed a full battery, died after just a few minutes.  he used niece’s phone to video the rest so we’ve got to figure out how to get that from her.  it was probably close to fifteen minutes all together.  on our way out, we were handed a dvd along with our sonogram pix – another unexpected surprise.  so we’ve got the video hubby took so that we can hear the explanations and our reactions and such but then we’ve also got the actual ultrasound footage too!  3d and dvd… what wonderful surprises to top off a fabulous, emotional office visit 🙂