boys in the hood

I'm still surprised but the ultrasound definitely proved that I'm carrying another boy! It took us all a few minutes to get our heads around, because all three of us thought it was a girl, but we are psyched to have another boy.

My due date is April 12, and right now (at 19 weeks) the baby weighs 9 oz. Just a tiny little guy. Jackson has decided to name him Sharky-Shark, for now. The ultrasound took over an hour and he was getting a little impatient, so we started joking that maybe I was growing a dinosaur, or maybe a baby shark (currently his two favorite species).

I had two different ultrasound techs, both of which were males! I've had a handful of ultrasounds in the past few years and have never had a male. My experience with ultrasound techs has been that they are all business - they have specific info/measurements to gather, so please don't slow them down by asking questions. It's so hard because I'm so curious!! And I want to ask a million questions.

The first tech, Kirk, was still learning so he did the first half of the ultrasound. He was very laid back and talked a lot. He talked to Jackson, he answered all kinds of our questions. (He also guessed it was a girl.) And then his supervisor, Brian, was just as friendly and accommodating. It really was a different experience than any other ultrasound I've had before. It seems to take a trained eye to really understand the way an ultrasound works, and there is so much that shows up on the screen that seems indecipherable - but they each told us so much about what they were looking at.

We were able to see all four chambers of the heart, and even to see the way the blood was flowing in and out. We saw all ten of the baby's toes and fingers (we got a good thumbs-up shot). At one point Brian kind of tapped on my belly with the ultrasound wand. I inquired and he explained that he was checking that the baby's skin continued from the back of the neck all along the spine, and when he tapped my belly it pushed the baby away from my uterus for just a moment to get a good view of the baby's skin.

They both had a little trouble getting the head measurements because little Sharky-Shark was doing acrobatics like he was on speed. I was surprised because the other two ultrasounds I've had (where I could see the whole baby) he's been totally chilled out (another reason I thought it was a girl). But he was seriously moving. I started feeling him kick at 17 weeks but still his kicks seem small. I only actually felt about 10% of the movement that I observed on the screen during the ultrasound.

I'm so glad to know that it's a boy, to start thinking about what we will name him, and even just to finally call it a him. After watching him on the screen I realized how crazy it seems that he's a full baby right now! He has every body part that a baby has at birth. And yet, he still has 5 more months of growing to do before he could live outside of me. It fascinates me, how something is alive within my own body.