Pink or Blue?

One of the things that has surprised me the most in this pregnancy is the difference of opinion Bryce and I have on finding out the sex of the baby. I always assumed we'd be in the same boat since we both like to plan and be prepared. So, when I heard Bryce say he wanted to be surprised, I was shocked!

I spent the next several weeks trying to understand his position and convince him that finding out the sex is really a better option. Among my reasons were:
1. Eliminating having to choose a boy or girl name
2. Planning a nursery according to sex
3. Other people like to know (it's one of the first things they ask!)
4. Now I have plenty of time to shop for cute clothes, and obviously I will be busy later on!
5. I wanted to be able to imagine the person I'm growing inside me

...and ultimately:

6. We'll be surprised whether we find out during an ultrasound or in the delivery room!

Bryce left me hanging for awhile and I had many conversations with friends and co-workers about how I could convince him to see things my way. It seemed that most people sided with me, though there were some individuals who had waited to be surprised themselves or saw the excitement in the unknown. I sort of understood, but not really...

A couple of days before Christmas, Bryce and I decided to exchange gifts. As is tradition for him, Bryce handed me my gift wrapped in a pillow case. I pulled out two onesies: one pink and one blue. I asked Bryce what he was trying to tell me with these gifts...
He said "Well, I wanted to be the first one to buy the baby something. We can take back the one we don't need."
"When will that be?" I wondered, trying to see if he would cave.
"Well, we'll probably find out near the end of February, right?"

Yippee! He gave me exactly what I wanted. Of course I was thrilled and jumped around, as is tradition for me. Bryce said that although he still wanted to be surprised, he couldn't make me wait if I really wanted to know. What a guy, huh?

The ultrasound isn't scheduled yet, but we should be able to find out the sex (as long as Peter cooperates) toward the end of February/beginning of March. We'll keep you posted!

Welcome!

Welcome to our baby blog! We wanted a way to keep our friends and relatives updated on our progress with this pregnancy. For those of you who haven't been informed, Bryce and I wanted to give our little fetus a name so we wouldn't have to refer to it as "it" or "the baby", so we lovingly deemed him Peter Skeeters (and don't worry, the name won't stick even if he does turn out to be a boy!)

Today we went to the doctor for a check of fetal heart tones. The nurse practitioner told us last week at our appointment that it was too early to hear using a doppler, but that we could come back this week to check. She searched for several minutes using the doppler and only heard what she interpreted as "kicks", but no heartbeat. Of course this tends to worry a parent, so she checked with the doctor and they decided that I should get an ultrasound to be sure.

So, we walked across the hallway to the ultrasound room and peered with anticipation at the flat screen in front of us. As soon as she squirted the cold gel and placed the ultrasound wand on my stomach, Peter showed his face! I had to giggle at how cute he looked. So tiny! The tech applied the feature which shows blood flow to allow us to see the beating heart. She turned the volume up so we could hear the heart beating--152 beats per minute.

She did her best to get good pictures of Peter, but he was wiggling around a lot. We got to see his long skinny legs (Bryce's child...?) but he moved them so much she couldn't get a good picture. We ended up with the pictures here:


Here Peter is lying on his side with the head on the left and body on the right.

This is the best picture we could get of Peter's face. If you turn your head a bit, you can see one eye, little nostrils, and a mouth. How cute!