It's a boy!

It's a boy and he is NOT shy! :) As soon as the ultrasound wand touched my belly, we watched him roll towards it and spread eagle his legs. The tech said she had never had a baby be quite so cooperative. The first picture here was taken almost immediately and you are looking at him from underneath. So besides the obvious, you can see the underside of his legs along with the umbilical cord leading off to the right. What's even funnier is that he was not nearly as cooperative in letting her get a profile or face picture. She gave up for a little while and checked everything else (kidneys, heart, stomach, spine, placenta, etc. are all good) but the rascal was moving around so much that she had a pretty hard time catching his face. He finally gave in a little bit and gave us the 20 week picture on the right hand column of this page. Look at that flexed bicep!!! We think he looks like Popeye in the picture and everyone at the office was laughing right along with us. Seems that early indications are a baby boy with LOTS of personality! :) As of now, he's also a big boy as well as a healthy, active one. She estimated him to be about 15 oz and the average at 20 weeks is about 10.5 oz. Of course, this means little to nothing in terms of birth weight or adult size but made us chuckle nonetheless. The baby's first name will be Stephen after his father and grandfather and we're still tossing around middle names. We've also been meeting with pediatricians and have found one that we really like. The only bad news from here is that summer seems to be winding down. Football starts August 1st so, as the joke goes, I lose my husband until November (or December if we make it to the state championship). But we feel great about everything we've been able to get done and are hopeful that it will make the next few months a little less stressful.

I threw in the last picture for those of you who haven't seen my belly or my short hair (I recently cut off 11 inches). Most people can't tell that I'm pregnant when I'm wearing a T-shirt and khaki shorts so I put on gym shorts and tried to pull my shirt back and relax my abs in the picture so you could see the belly. Better yet, you can also see the crib and some of the decor we've put up in the nursery (note the Tigger stickers on the wall).

Until next time!

Martha