Definitely Having a Boy :)

His leg and foot. The tech said he has big hands and feet already!

Yesterday was "Gender Monday" at an elective ultrasound place in Bowie. I found them several weeks ago when researching 3D ultrasounds (which I am no longer interested in, they're not that much better than the normal 2D ones) and I knew that I would have MLK day off so I made an appointment. Gender Monday is where they will do a 2D ultrasound, determine/validate your baby's gender and give you four prints from your session. It's also a customer-oriented company so they do a lot to make sure their customers are comfortable and happy. It was a small place with apparently only one person actually working there, but she was very friendly and a good ultrasound tech.

Definitely a boy, his umbilical cord was clearly visible in another shot and farther up his stomach.

Since it wasn't a medical diagnostic ultrasound, we invited family to come along. In the end, my mom and Dan's parents were the ones who came and they were very happy that we had invited them. The ultrasound room had plenty of space and a couch for family to sit on, the ultrasound was also projected onto the wall so everyone had a really clear view of what was going on :) I had an ultrasound done at 19 weeks to rule out anomalies, but the baby was not super cooperative and they got what they needed to see but we only got two pictures of his profile and they look almost the same. They didn't end up getting too many views of his heart and I have to go back later this week just for that, but I'm very glad that I made the appointment at That's My Baby.

3D picture #1, if you don't look at a big version, you can make out some detail.

Our tech even threw in a couple 3D shots, which was super cool of her. We took a quick 3D peek since he was being so good (although not at first, he had his hands up by his face, she had to poke him around a bit) and I have to say, I'm glad I didn't pay for it. I don't know if it's just that I'm 22 weeks along and other 3D pictures I've seen have been older babies (like 35 weeks), or if that's just the way 3D looks sometimes, but it was pretty blobby and not very detailed. We can tell that he's got chubby cheeks (which I could even see on the 19 week ultrasound profile, so that was no surprise), my chin, and probably Dan's nose. When we were looking at the 3D, they felt out of focus to me, and I liked the 2D much better because they felt clearer. We got more 2D pictures than 3D (yay) and we also got more than the 4 prints the package said it included. We got 9 pictures total and most of them are pretty good.

3D picture #2. You can see his chubby cheeks better here, his head still looks really big.

I was telling the tech about how at my last ultrasound they estimated my due date to be sooner than it really is because of how big he's getting. She did a quick measurement and said that her equipment was saying the same thing, that instead of measuring to be a 22 week baby, he was more like a 26 week baby! She estimated his weight at 2lbs. which is crazy because he was measuring around 12oz. at 19 weeks. So in a mere 3 weeks, he gained over a pound. I did some math and figured that if that rate of growth stays about the same, he'll be 8 pounds or more when he's born. I can handle 8 pounds. Dan was 10 and I was 6 so 8 is literally meeting in the middle ;)

I'm off to bed now. I was killing time waiting to see if school would announce a delay or a snow day, and they announced a snow day. I'll only be working 2 actual days this week (I have Friday off for the medical ultrasound and yesterday was the holiday), which I have to say is pretty nice.