happy birthday to me

Yesterday we went in for our 18 week ultrasound. Everything was wonderful and baby was beautifully healthy and kicking like the devil I already know he or she is. We had two technicians exclaim that we had a very active baby in there (while he or she twisted and turned and changed positions 4 times). I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present.

We checked out the brain, the spine, the stomach, the bladder, the umbilical cord, the heart, the fingers and toes and legs and arms, oh my! Everything was perfect. Although I will tell you that this baby, at 18 weeks, 3 days, had a 20 week old head. This did not please me. I'd like to know why he can't have long legs instead? How about a big belly? Why the one body part that allegedly has to exit my nether regions first? Why must that be far larger than normal? The technician kept asking me if I was sure about the dates, and then if anyone else had ever mentioned this before. But I'm quite sure about both the cycle dates and the date of conception, so no question there. Baby just has a big noggin.

In measuring the big noggin, though, the technician (who was actually a doctor), kept measuring and remeasuring the belly and femur to see if the baby was ahead on all counts. The answer is yes, around 19 weeks for the belly and femur, but not the whopping 2 weeks ahead like the head. While doing so, he kept returning to one particular view, coming up from the bottom. In it, I could see the butt, two legs, spread-eagled, and then, umm, something in the middle. Since he was talking throughout his examination, it became crystal clear what direction we were looking from. At one point, I turned to Josh and asked, "Do you see what I see?" and his response? "I choose to ignore what I think I see." So we have no confirmation.

Clearly, I am no ultrasound technician. I have seen only a handful of boy and girl parts in ultrasound pictures from friends, and I can't be sure of what I saw. I also know that at this stage of the game, boy or girl parts are both very exaggerated and still settling into their relative positions. So the truth is, we still don't know and are keeping it that way until this baby decides to pop out and meet us. If anyone asks me, though, I am leaning toward thinking this baby is a boy. That would at least explain why I can only come up with a boy name for this baby, even though I've always thought that girl names are easier!

We'll see in December or January, I suppose.

The very most important thing, though, is that this beautiful little monkey is healthy and growing well so far. We watched him or her yawn, play with his or her face, kick around like crazy, curl up and stretch out and rub his or her eyes. It was amazing and I'm walking around on cloud 9, wondering how I can be so blessed, so very very fortunate.

I have a frame on my desk this morning, with a profile shot of my little tenant, one hand rubbing his eye and the other on his chest. The picture is in an engraved silver frame with the following at the bottom, "there is no such thing as a little moment."**

Indeed.

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** Gift from Chatty Cricket.