And it begins…

I just finished watching the video of this morning’s ultrasound. As I was watching, I was trying to remember what the doctor was looking at just prior to telling us to turn our heads if we didn’t want to know the sex of our child.

I kept watching. Immediately the devil hopped up on my shoulder and said, “Awww, just do it. You know you want to.” And like I always do, I subscribed to the devil’s advice. I thought to myself, “I’ll watch and if I see something, only I will know and I can keep it a secret from Elise.”

So I watched a little longer. I was watching a familiar scene. I kept waiting for what I thought was the point where the doctor told us to turn our heads. I kept thinking, “No, we saw this part. Yeah, we saw that part too.” The angel hopped up on my other should and said, “Now Josh, you know to do the right thing. Just turn your head.” And I decided to listen to the angel. I was going to turn my head when I knew the time was right.

I was watching what the untrained eye would think of as a lava lamp. And then I saw the frame freeze. But the frozen frame was familiar. I quickly realized that this freeze frame was where the doctor marked where Elise’s ovarian cyst used to be. And then I realized that the frozen frame I was looking at was after the doctor told us to turn our heads. Unbeknownst I had watched the part where this morning we were told to turn our heads.

So I sat there and watched the whole thing. I witnessed the part where the doctor and the ultrasound tech could easily determine the sex of our child.

So it gives me great pleasure to know that our first-born is going to be a lava lamp.

Number 1 and he (or she) knows it!

Elise is 20-weeks along now and everything is going great. We went to the Texas Parinatal Group today for the baby’s anatomy ultrasound. We made sure that we immediately told the ultrasound technician that we didn’t want to know the sex of our baby.

Apparently baby was sleeping or very tired because we didn’t get an Axl Rose dance this time.

We got to see our child’s little arms, legs, skull, organs (although we were told to close our eyes during part of the organ exam) and face. Talk about an exciting experience!

The doctor came in and performed the “medical” ultrasound. The ultrasound we watched the tech do was for mom and dad giggles. Doc said baby is doing great and growing perfectly!

We had the entire process taped so I can’t wait to get home tonight and watch it all again.

Here is what Elise had to say about the day in an e-mail to my mom.

We had our ultrasound appointment today. Luckily they point things out and freeze the image so you can decipher what it is they’re showing you. We could see most everything pretty easily; the beating heart, the brain, the spine, kidneys, liver, one of the femurs, both hands, arms and face.

We saw its little hands by its face (no thumb sucking though). One was in a fist below its chin and the other was opened flat against its face. At one point the technician came back to the baby’s hands and it was holding up 1 little finger like the #1 sign. We laughed and the technician marked “1″ on the photo for us.

I think Josh got a little frustrated a couple of times because they pointed out the baby’s mouth opening and closing and he just wasn’t seeing it. When we left the office we scanned the ultrasound photos they gave us and I showed him the mouth picture. He saw it then. We didn’t see anything that would indicate a boy or a girl.

The technician did the sonogram first and then the doctor came in to verify the technician’s work. He said everything looked good. He did take a gander “down there” and told us if we didn’t want to know then we should turn our heads for that part. They have a TV mounted on the wall so you don’t have to strain your head to see the ultrasound monitor and Josh and I both looked away from the TV, but then I caught him looking at the doctor’s monitor. I scolded him and he just smirked and said, “I can’t tell what I’m looking at anyway.”

Before we left the technician showed us another scan of a chart with an asterisk in the middle. She told us it is a growth chart and the bottom line represents the 10th percentile and the top line represents the 90th percentile and our baby is the asterisk right in the middle. Josh asked, “So our baby is average?” I laughed because I too couldn’t help but think that’s what she was telling us.

When we walked out I mentioned to Josh that we’re already becoming the “worried” parents wondering why our baby isn’t at the top of its percentile. The technician handed us our photos and vhs tape and Josh proudly carried them out to the receptionist’s desk and she asked us if we would like a little folder for our pictures.

That’s about it. I have my regular OB appointment tomorrow. I’m curious to see what the doctor records the heart beat at. The first time we heard the heart beat it was around the mid 150’s. The last time we went it was closer to 160 and today the technician said it was around 142.

Click here to see the ultrasound photos.