He or She What Will It Be?

Tuesday marked the 23rd week of my pregnancy! We celebrated Thanksgiving 2013 with my mom, my Scott, my sister, two brothers, grandparents, nieces, and step sisters all gathered at our house. In my perfect world, I want to host the dinner where all the place settings are matching with the beautiful center piece and shiny casserole dishes with to die for presentation. However, my budding dishware collection is lacking a few key pieces like pans to cook a turkey or a casserole dish for green bean casserole so this meal would have never happened without my amazing mom and grandma. They knew before they even came over to help cook that I would need a few of these items and came fully prepared. It was such a relief because I spent 5 hours that morning making pies that I was sure were going to be a flop because I was missing half the ingredients! Thanks to my mom and grandmas thoughtfulness though, the rest of the meal was perfection and the pies didn't turn out bad either. We cooked some delicious food and managed to survive the spilled Costco size jar of pickles. It was wonderful to have everyone under the same roof laughing and talking together and made me think how lucky I am to have these people in my life to support, love and accept me. 

Following the excitement of Thanksgiving, we had our first ultrasound to look forward to on December 6th! Leading up to the ultrasound I had been looking at tons of ultrasound pictures and reading about what they would be showing us. So Friday afternoon we climbed into the Subaru and headed down to the Denver Tech Center to our midwives preferred clinic, Genassist. I haven't spoken much about our homebirth journey because it had a bumpy start when I wasn't far along and just wanted to see an OB about my morning sickness while continuing my care with my midwife. I called the OB's office and mentioned we were pursuing a homebirth but wanted to first be seen medically first and the receptionist on the phone treated me like I was insane and said before they would see or treat me I would need to agree to transfer my care solely to them and birth in the hospital. After feeling the unaccepting uneducated view of homebirth in the medical world I was worried I would get a similar welcome at the ultrasound clinic. Boy was I wrong. Dr. Wexler and his receptionist were so warm and welcoming to us and didn't treat us like we were making a foolish decision or risking my health, but rather as a normal couple who was excited to see the status of their growing miracle. He also had nothing but good things to say about our midwife and spoke highly of her expertise. I was instantly put at ease and able to relax and enjoy the appointment as I feel every mother-to-be should. Turns out our baby likes to be head down, feet up on the left side of my belly, which is more than likely the cause of most of my morning sickness and loss of appetite. Right away I was in such shock that the movement I felt actually came from that tiny little being on the screen, which by the way was moving the entire appointment! Dr. Wexler quickly found the arm bones and leg bones. 

Spine

Footsie with toes!

We saw from the skull to the tail bone which was above my belly button, and there sat a little bum and thigh bones perfectly positioned to see something else, that wasn't the umbilical cord! We have a BOY! Not only do we have a boy but we have a boy who has all the proper organs in the proper places, with a healthy spine, heart, kidneys and brain, who is being housed in a healthy placenta and nourished by a healthy umbilical cord! The look on Eric's face when Dr. Wexler said that we were looking at the gender, and it was obvious what it was, was priceless. He had been so convinced that we were having a girl that I think he was just in pure shock. I on the other hand turned into a leaky faucet and cried off and on like a baby the rest of the appointment out of joy. The due date for our son (crazy that I am saying that!) is still April the 1st since he was right on with all of his measurements. Because his head was so low, and he was facing away from my belly we don't have a profile photo but just look at those little toes! So there you have it!