My Baby, Gigantore

I know there are a lot of people who get ultrasounds and then the gender of the baby is different. Sometimes it is hard to tell, or to see, or the baby is uncooperative and the tech has to guess. When we went in for our appointment they asked if we wanted to know the gender. I told them that we did, and if they couldn't tell, could they please fake a reason for us to come back because I just really needed to know (although I was already sure). They covered my belly with goop, put on the wand thing and pulled it right back up "I know what it is, you sure you want to know?" Yeap, it was the obvious, as demonstrated below. For those of you less familiar with ultrasounds, you are looking down at his thigh bones (knees bent so they are under his knee caps), spread eagle, although slightly turned in to other stuff, I guess the placenta since I identified the umbilical cord. The specialist even made a joke about you can't be more sure than that. So, world, meet our little boy.

On Thursday we went in for our 20 week anatomy scan, we went to a perinatologist rather than just a regular sonographer. Although the sonographer we would have seen would have an obstetrical specialty, our doctor recommended the perinatologist so that we could focus on cleft-lip, cleft palette. The baby looked great. All of the major organs were functioning properly, there were no spinal issues, the placenta is far enough away from my cervix to avoid complications and the baby opened his mouth so that the doctor could get a good profile shot of his lip. He also got a shot of just his nose and lip, but I couldn't tell what it was even after he looked at it and showed me. I am glad he thinks the baby is fine.

I am not particularly impressed with the photos we received, although I supposed that is the downfall of a specialist. They spent a lot of time measuring organs and watching them work, and less time getting me good shots of our little boy complete with arms and legs. I think ultrasound photos are creepy anyway, but somehow I still love mine and wish I had more. The doctor did comment on the unusual size of the baby and even double checked my LMP to make sure it was right. The average weight of a baby at 20 weeks is 10.5 ounces. According to LMP I was exactly 20 weeks (although I am still sticking with a date four days early, see other posts for that rundown). My baby weighs 14.5 ounces. Not that an extra 4 ounces is that much, but it is when it is a third of your entire body weight!! Since then I have learned that Mike was 8 pounds 9 ounces when born, my dad had a smart ass remark about Norwegian men in general and my aunt told me my grandma gave birth to numerous 10 pound babies. Numerous. WTF! I am so screwed. Mike on the other hand finds the entire thing hilarious and says things like "we know where those extra 3 ounces are." Oh well, here is my gargantuan baby, even if you can't tell he has arms and legs.