It's A...

GIRL!

Hooray! We are so excited to be numbered among the lucky ones who get one of each gender for their first two kids. Kevin was able to attend the first half of our ultrasound with me before he had to return to work. Turns out his first afternoon patient canceled on him so he would have been able to stay, but the good news is that he practically won't have missed anything since I have about 40 pictures and 8 videos for him to see! The ultrasound tech was not busy at all -- there were no other appointments waiting after me -- so she took her time really trying to get good pictures of our little girl. None of the 3D pictures are quite as clear as the ones we got with Mikey since our little girl had her face snuggled right up next to my placenta, and half the time the umbilical cord was also looped in front of her nose and mouth. I was thrilled, however that I got to spend about an hour in the room looking at these pictures and videos of my sweet little baby!

The ultrasound tech was the same lady we had when I was pregnant with Mikey. She is great, so nice, and loves her job. Anyway, she explained a lot of the things she was looking at and measuring. The measurements she took of the baby that estimate the age said she was 20 weeks and 5 days old, and her age based on my last period is 20 weeks and 4 days! You can't get much closer than that. She is growing right on target. She weighs about 14 oz. She was contorted into a bunch of crazy positions, which made getting the pictures more difficult at times. She had one or both of her feet up near her head for the first twenty minutes. Her arms are up near her head and face in a lot of the pictures below, and the videos. I'll just put a brief description by each one now.

And for those of you who haven't heard yet, we are naming her Ginny! I have known a few Ginnys in my life that I have absolutely loved and I know this Ginny will be no exception. :)

This is her head lying next to the placenta. The nose area was almost always blurry because of the portion of her umbilical cord that was between her face and the transducer, but the few times I saw her nose more clearly it was very cute :)

You can see the bridge of her nose a little bit in this picture, but I like the way you can see her lips. She had her mouth open like this for a while. She also yawned a few times during the ultrasound.

This picture shows her right forearm and hand coming across her body and up under her chin. She has the cutest, tiny fingers right now! Again, her face is blurred by the cord in front of it.

Here's our proof of the female parts... We looked between her legs several times and waited for her to get in a position for a clear picture. This picture is a little weird to see, but it's looking up at her bottom, the white arrow points to the part in question. Her legs were open and there was some other image between her knees behind the arrow, maybe a loop of cord or part of an arm. Not sure.

Last, but not least, a picture of her face that was a little more straight on, as in not smashed up against the placenta. Sadly, the umbilical cord was still wrapped in front of her nose and mouth so it made the whole things kinda blurry/bumpy.

These are just four of the videos we got saved. You can see flashes of body parts and of her face as they come in and out of focus. She was moving quite a bit throughout the whole thing, but never moved her face into full view. We could get much clearer pictures if we wanted to pay for a second ultrasound around 30 weeks, but I kinda doubt we'll do that. We'll just wait to see what she looks like when she comes out :) We love you, little Ginny! We're so excited for Mikey to meet his little sister!!!!

Pregnancy update

Calling all gamblers! Calling all gamblers! Who wants to bet on which gender this child 'o' mine is? We only have one week left until our ultrasound, and all is revealed. I guess this is not really gambling since I'm not collecting money for a pool, nor am I handing out a prize other than the "good for you, you guessed right on a multiple choice question that you had 50:50 odds of getting correct" award. Kevin thinks it is a girl, so I am saying I think it's a boy. That way, one of us will be right. Unless it's a hermaphrodite, which I'm pretty sure will freak us out, but is highly unlikely.

Our appointment is next Thursday afternoon, so make your guesses before then. We are very excited and will let you know soon after we find out!

Also, for your entertainment, a funny story about my ditzy pregnancy brain: I was wearing a pair of sunglasses while out visiting the botanical gardens with a friend and her kids. We played in a little play area afterward, and as we were getting ready to leave, I realized I wasn't wearing my glasses anymore. I thought I must have left them in the play area, so I told my friend, "I think I lost my sunglasses." She replied, "You mean the ones on your head?" .... boy did I feel sheepish.

In other news, I have locked myself out of my car twice since I've been pregnant. One of the times, I was at a gas station and Mikey was locked inside and we were parked at the pump, so I had to wait for one of Kevin's co-workers to drive the other set of keys to me, meanwhile blocking anyone else from using that pump. The end.

Easter and Master Dunc-Meister

Well this post is about a month late. I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the pregnancy. Other things I'm going to blame on the pregnancy: the lack of pictures I have taken in the past month, the lack of blogging I have done in the past month, and the fact that I don't have ANY pictures from my recent trip to California to visit my parents. It's not that I'm not feeling well, it's just that I'm VERY forgetful, so I've forgotten to bring my camera places, forgotten to charge it, and forgotten to blog in general. Oops! Anyway, we went to Orem and stayed with Auntie Neesh and Uncle Freddo during the Easter weekend. These first pictures were the few I got of the kids getting ready to do their egg hunt right before my camera battery died.

My cousin Abby's kids were hilarious. And very sweet. Her son performed numerous dance numbers for us one afternoon, and her daughter gave me a few hugs while I was there that just melted my heart. They are precious!

Mikey got to play with his cousin Mya. They play pretty well together, in the sense that neither one makes the other cry, and they don't gouge each other's eyes out anymore... mostly. Haha. She was so fun to hang out with!

I even got to rock her to sleep a few times while her parents were working hard cleaning their apartment to get ready for the big move to Bountiful. I'm excited to have a tiny baby of my own again to sleep in my arms. Mikey just doesn't do the napping in my lap anymore... sniff, sniff. He's growing up so fast!

Here I am with my little bro who is now a Master of Accountancy! Congratulations, bro-hah! We had a fun weekend and were happy to support Dunc in this big milestone. I celebrated my 28th birthday that Saturday and my hubby took me out to the movies and got me a gift card to Barnes and Noble. My parents and my in-laws also gave me birthday money, which I spent this past weekend in California! I got myself some maternity/nursing shirts and some shorts for summer. Hooray! I also bought a second hypnobirthing book from B&N with my gift card from Kevin.

I wanted to blog about my California trip, but I have no pictures... Suffice it to say, I had a blast. Mikey had tons of fun playing with his grandma and grandpa, but not as much fun as they had seeing him! We admired the newly renovated kitchen that my parents finished. My mom and I shopped and ate lunch out a few times, and just had fun hanging out and making each other laugh. I took Mikey for a walk to the park on the one day that was warm enough, and he learned how to go down a slide by himself! He's very brave. We were joking that the week was really hard on us because the TV was out of commission for two days, followed by the phone and internet being down for another two days. It was like we were pioneers again... or living in the dark ages... whichever is worse. All of those problems stemmed from my parents having their roof replaced, which was in and of itself a very noisy and almost apocalyptic experience. Ever heard of "the sky is falling"? Well, that's nothing compared to being in a house when a dozen men are ripping the roof off. Mikey was still able to take his naps on those days, though, so we were ok. Thanks to my mom and dad for their wonderful hospitality and for enjoying my baby! (It makes me feel good when other people are just as obsessed with him as I am.) Sadly, I will not see my parents in person again for a long time since they're moving to BRAZIL for a year! WAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I won't see my Dad until possibly Christmas time (if he passes through Utah, where we'll be) and I won't see my mom until the end of October when she comes to help out with the new baby. I love you guys and will miss you a lot!