A general note on ultrasounds: they are insane. I knew that in my 19 week ultrasound I'd be able to see my baby, and that the pictures would be much clearer than my last one at nine weeks. But you can see little legs kicking with little feet on the end, and little toes on the end of that. Little legs and feet and toes that look like a real human's legs and feet and toes. You can see the heart pumping and each chamber, the lobes of the brain, and individual ribs. Amazing what they can do here in the '10s, right?
Now, a note on my particular ultrasound: I went in last Thursday, November 4th, thinking I was having a girl...both of us did. Neither of us had a preference either way (although if you'd asked me a year ago, I'd definitely have said I wanted a boy), but nearly every baby I knew born in the past year, or due in the near future, was a boy. So, when the sonographer took her little cursor and said, "You know what that is?" I did know what it was, but my first thought was, "But girls don't have penises!" I didn't realize how much I'd actually been convinced it was a girl until then. I was so, so happy, even if I may have been partly in shock. And the sonographer seemed genuinely impressed with the size of his little boy parts. Way to go, champ! We also did find out, and this is most important, that he is a very healthy, very active little guy who is right where he should be in terms of size and development.
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| Hello there, Mister! |
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| H, J, and Lil Mr. Fil. |
That night, I baked a cake that night and dyed the cake mix, and we brought it into our office the next morning so everyone could cut into it and see if it was pink or blue. It made me feel all cute and domestic, and made me realize it was probably the first time I'd baked anything since we moved in our house over a year and a half ago. Jamie saw me get out two round cake pans and though that meant we were making two cakes ("How did you think the icing got in the middle?" "I thought it was infused in there somehow."). We eat a lot of take out. But making that cake made me feel better about spending money on redoing our kitchen this spring, even if it was just from a box. It turned out blue and tasted good...and a lot of that probably has to do with our stainless steel appliances and pretty tilework.
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| What could it be?! |
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| It's a boy! |
I guess the strangest thing about knowing what it is, is knowing what it isn't. More than half of the stuff I was thinking of registering for, gone. The two names I loved most, gone (we had two fantastic, agreed-upon girl sets of names, but had and are still having a hard time with boy names). The baby isn't an "it" any longer, but a "he" (which makes blogging significantly easier when I can say "he" instead of rewriting sentences to include "Baby" or "Lil Fil" so I didn't call it an "it" and seem insensitive). Regardless of whether I was wrong or right about the sex, it's a weird thing to wrap your head around. But going out and buying a bunch of boy stuff is a great way to remedy that :)
Recap of Weeks 18 & 19:
- Lil Fil is the size of: a large mango. What to Expect When Your Expecting (which is the pregnancy bible for those of you who aren't familiar) describes it as "a mango dipped in greasy cheese," but I like to think of him as a freshly-washed mango.
- I have gained: About 8 pounds.
- I love: water! (see below)
- I hate: sleeping on my side. I'm not able to sleep on my stomach for obvious reasons, and not allowed to sleep on my back (there's some science behind that but I don't remember all of what it is, just that it's annoying).
- I physically feel: good, now. I went into the doctor a week ago because I'd been sick for a couple of days, and tried to go back into work but I got really dizzy and hot, and my vision started going spotty as if I was about to black out, which scared the hell out of me. I went to the doctor that day, and sure enough my blood pressure was super low (it's been really low my whole pregnancy, but it was down to 84/52, which is waaay lower than it had been). Apparently staying hydrated is a cure-all. I've been toting around my Nalgene and getting hassled by everyone at work about drinking it, and it's made me feel amazingly better.
- I emotionally feel: happy!
- Comment(s) of the week: I have a big red circle on the calendar and it says sex...hope no one sees that and takes it the wrong way... - My friend Angela, on my ultrasound appointment.
- Milestone: It's a boy! Duh. Other than that, I'm finally starting to feel the little guy move inside of me(!) I've had Jamie get up close to my stomach and talk to him because supposedly the low sound waves of males' voices transmit better, so babies are more likely to respond to them...or so I'm told. I still haven't felt the baby respond directly to Jamie's voice (although my stomach gets jealous and quite audibly gurgles back to him every time, without fail; I had to explain to Jamie the first time it happened that I was sure it was my stomach and not the baby). But there have been several times just in the past few days, and mostly when I'm still, that I have felt what I can tell is the baby and not just general stomach happenings.
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| 19 weeks |
