Pictures, Heartbeats and Pending Penis

Tim, Baby and I had a very eventful day!

This morning we had our Down Syndrome ultrasound, where they measure the amount of fluid behind the baby's neck and the nasal bone and pair those two things with a blood test to determine the risks of Down Syndrome...we aren't high risk but it was another chance for us to see our little peanut so we took it and we are so glad that we did!

The baby was in a perfect position for the ultrasound tech to take her measurements but since we had about 45 mins allotted for the scan (since most babies aren't as cooperative as ours) we just got to watch it dance and move all around for about 20 mins. It was bouncing all around and would sleep for a few mins then jump around for a few mins then fall back asleep for another few mins....it was great! It was kicking it's legs and flailing it's arms all around which was so cool...it even waved at us!


While we were in the middle of the test the ultrasound tech asked us if she wanted us to make a guess on the gender of the baby....of course we did! So she went on to discuss a study which dealt with the angle of the "swollen genital area" and showed us that our baby's area was angled up...which according to the study that she was referencing the baby is most likely a boy. The rate of accuracy of this study is kind of hard to look past! Here are 2 web pages that explain a little more about the study and it's accuracy:

http://www.baby2see.com/gender/study_ultrasound.html
http://www.baby2see.com/gender/external_genitals.html

Based off of this and also my gut feeling from the beginning I think the baby is definitely A BOY! I'm not going to start painting the nursery blue just yet, but I am getting myself prepared for the 18 week ultrasound which will determine the baby's sex with pretty good (almost 100%) accuracy!

BUT the good news is that most likely the baby does not have down syndrome and is healthy and we saw 2 arms and 2 legs that were all attached and moving freely with no problems. We also got to hear the heartbeat which was a whopping 168bpm (beats per min) which is healthy and right on track! I also decided to take a crappy video from my phone of the baby's heartbeat from my home doppler:



And just because this blog post is such a hodgepodge of crap, here is a picture that I took of my "bump" this evening:




We have our monthly appointment with the Midwife tomorrow! Will keep you updated!

Love,
Sharon

PS- I don't know where we got a due date of December 27 because all of my charts and info at the hospital stated my due date as Christmas day. This due date was confirmed on today's ultrasound and by the doctor that read the scan. So Christmas it is! Looks like Christmas will be coming to us this year!!