IT'S A BOY!!

Well we finally had an ultrasound where "Peanut" wanted to show off the goods!  It was scheduled for 4pm today but I got a call around noon asking if I could be there at 2 instead... but my mother had gone on a 45 minute walk without her cell phone (and needless to say, I was panicking!) so we got to find out sooner than originally planned!  This time, baby didn't want to stop showing anything but the goods and it took us a while to get a picture of his face.

At 18 weeks, he's the size of a sweet potato (and much cuter than this picture!) and weighed in at 9 ounces - which is a little big, but still in the normal range and will come in very handy if they actually do induce me 3 weeks early as projected (only 132 more days!).  The doctor and sonographer both said that everything looks fantastic (good to know with Nate's history of kidney problems) and that our little man is measuring beautifully - and going to be a big boy! 

Unfortunately, this means that as quickly as Baby is growing, Mommy is starting to expand quite rapidly too!

This is just before we hit the 17 week mark.

This is right at 18 weeks.

And this was today after the ultrasound (18 weeks 2 days) where I'm up 5.6 pounds, 2 bra sizes, and starting to be uncomfortable in my "normal" clothes.

So, now onto the baby's pictures, since I'm sure that's what you're most interested in anyhow!  Some of the images are kinda blob-y and they aren't the best quality since they're uploaded from cell phone shots of the ultrasound pictures, but you'll get the point...

 This is the left side of his face; you can see the outline of his eye socket, his nose, and his lips, along with the definition of his chin.

 This is what the sonographer called "The Terminator": The pointy bit off to the left is the knee pulled up, the gray matter at the bottom is his belly, and the round bit in the middle of the image is his face, straight on, with no features (well, I guess, you can slightly make out his nasal socket-the dark sideways triangle) but the circular thing at the top is the baby's retina!

 This is a picture of his arm and hand in a semi-fist pose.

 They had just made me drink a can of ice-cold Coke in an attempt to get him to stop standing on his head and allow us to get a picture of his face, so I'm thinking in this picture, he's got his fist to his forehead in a "brain freeze!" motion.

 This is the 3D version of the up-the-butt shot, though it's hard to define what's uterus, legs, and "boy parts" but if you get creative, I'm sure you can manage (oh, how he'll hate me for this when he's a teenager!).

 This one (as you can tell by the description in the bottom left corner) is a picture of the bottom of his (VERY LARGE) foot.

 This is a profile picture with him bringing his hand up towards his mouth, right before he stuck the thumb in the mouth.

 Imagine a grumpy old man face... that's what this is. Left side profile, but he's scrunching up his lips/chin.

 "I'M A BOY"

 Profile picture, not quite as clear as others, but the incredibly white part is his chin (left), nose (pointing up in the middle), and forehead (sloping to the right).

 Another left side of the face (wow, these kinda look like aliens, but it's incredible the things they can see on these scans nowadays!) with his fist kinda tucked up near his chin.

 And another shot of his boy parts.

 And yet another "winky" shot!

This is my favorite picture we got today... profile with his legs and arms tucked up near his tummy and his little chin lifted off his chest - great shot of the shape of his face!