It's a...

What an exciting couple of months for us!!  I've been journaling on my own mostly, hence the lack of posts recently.  But the pregnancy has been, well... uneventful!  Even now, heading into Week 22, I'm barely showing.  I've noticed a difference, but it's definitely not immediately known to anyone but us.  No sickness, no major symptoms... I've only gained about 5 lbs total, and the only thing I've noticed is that I'm suffering from heartburn for the first time in my life, and I tire quickly.  I was trying to clean our house today and after a couple hours I had to sit and rest.  But I can't complain, the whole pregnancy has been so easy, and because it has been so uneventful it's been hard to find anything to talk about!  The biggest moment so far was last week at our 20-week ultrasound.

We were so happy, anxious, and nervous heading into our 20-week ultrasound and check-up.  The time had finally come - would we have a little man or a little lady?  Matt and I had always wanted a little boy... I wasn't quite sure why, but my guess is that I've always felt girls were so much more difficult and stressful and expensive!  While we knew we would have been happy with either, we had always talked about little boys, and how we'd want him to be musical, and have him play hockey, and so on.  We'd been waiting for so long to know what we were having - from our very first ultrasound we were agonizing over the wait... but we'd survived the three long months and had finally arrived at THE ultrasound.

We arrived at the doctor's office almost 20 minutes early, which was even more agonizing.  We sat, distracting ourselves on our phones, waiting incredibly impatiently, until our names were called and we got to head into that ultrasound room.  Our tech brought us in and we took our usual seats, "assumed the position" on the recliner, and she told us that she was working on a recertification with the state, so we'd have nearly a half hour of watching our little baby.  No problem, we said!!  The recertification was basically her going through a list of body parts and labeling the images as "left femur," etc.  It was amazing to see a clear-as-crystal image of baby's heart, with all four chambers showing, pumping along!  We also got a short video of our ultrasound, which was crazy.  Our tech asked us, as she was nearing the end of her list, if we were planning to find out the gender.  "YES!!" we both exclaimed - we couldn't contain ourselves anymore.  So she moved her wand around and stopped it on a perfect "profile" ... and Matt and I glanced at each other, as our tech said, "Well?  Can you see it?  Do you know what you're having?"  Matt's eyes were huge, and I'm sure mine were the same.  

It's a BOY!!!

My heart immediately started to race from pure excitement and adrenaline.  I felt like I was floating through the rest of the ultrasound.  Our tech finished her recertification piece, then said, "Okay, just forget all that, and we'll start the real ultrasound now!" She pulled us through the rest, giving us our "standard" profile shots, a few baby feet shots, and another she affectionately labeled as "My Unit!"  When she was finished (which always happens way too soon) she gave us our pictures and our video and off we went.

After our appointment (and a flu shot, boo!) we made our phone calls to parents and sent text messages to friends, sharing our good and exciting news.  We were so happy and in utter shock, to be completely honest!!  We decided to celebrate our good news (of course, we would have celebrated no matter what we were having) over dinner and spent the entire evening in complete awe of the news.  Since then, we've been talking to our little man and calling him by name.  We went out and bought some little boy clothes, and have just been giddy-excited every day.

Other big and exciting news came shortly before our ultrasound - Matt finally heard about the job at Integer, and he got it!  The biggest stress about it was that they wanted him to give 5 day's notice, but he started the Monday after our ultrasound and loves it so far.  While we lost our Cadillac insurance his happiness has been such a major difference in our everyday life.  We're working on the insurance solution - obviously, we need to have it! - but he's been in such a better mood the last week or so.  He's been carpooling with another former Apple co-worker, but the pressure is on to save for another car... you know, on top of saving for our little man!

He's also been moving around a LOT since he made his big reveal, which is the weirdest feeling ever.  One of the best things for me happened just two days ago - Matt got to feel him kicking and squirming around for the first time!  It's just a further realization that this is, in fact, actually happening (and happening FAST!) and that pretty soon our little family will grow.