It's a GIRL!!!!!!

It's official!!!

If you've been following my blog then you know that all along I've been counting on (and hoping for) a girl. The 19 week ultrasound that was SUPPOSED to confirm the gender was inconclusive. Baby wasn't cooperating and we couldn't get a proper look. The technician at the time said there was a 60-70% chance it was a girl but no way to be sure. I wanted to be 100% certain. There has been a 60-70% chance of thunderstorms just about every day for a week now and we barely got two drops of rain. Meanwhile, people kept giving me pink clothes (everyone I knew that had babies recently had girls so I have hundreds of pink sleepers). I had named her quite early on, in the first month, while her dad was still in the picture. I wanted a girl. It just HAD to be a girl. But I didn't know and I didn't want to wait until delivery to find out.

Now, at 32 weeks, I was going for another ultrasound. I was stressed. I was nervous that they wouldn't be able to tell, afraid that it would turn out to be a boy after all (yes of course I'd love my baby no matter what but I'm a girlie girl and I was looking forward to bonding with a girl. I'd been thinking girl all along, based on the chain test which always circled, my own sixth sense about it, the fact that everyone was giving me pink clothes, that I had already picked out a girl's name and didn't have any boy's names in mind etc.) Having a boy without a name and with 500 pink sleepers would have been a challenge. I would have a harder time relating to a boy. I don't like sports. I don't like their toys or their clothes. Plus I suppose there was part of me that was afraid the baby would be like his father. Hopefully she'll be a girl just like Mommy!

When I had called to book the ultrasound appointment, the lady on the phone was rather unpleasant. She seemed surprised that I was going for an ultrasound this late in the pregnancy and asked the reason. The doctor had put "spotting" on the form (I did have a spot, once. Everything seemed fine but the doctor thought it best to check it out. She actually wasn't even going to send me for an ultrasound except that I begged her to.) My reason of course was to tell the gender. When I told the woman on the phone that I really want to know if it's a girl she snapped at me "Well this is just going to be a brief appointment to make sure everything is OK because of the spotting. It will just be a few minutes, not like the last one. You probably won't be able to tell!"

Luckily the technician that I got doing the test was much more sympathetic.

I was lying there, staring at the beige walls and up at the ceiling, a drop ceiling, with white panels covered in squiggly patterns which looked like thousands of stretch marks, waiting for her to say something. I didn't want to interrupt and be a nuisance. Before she started, I had told her about my dilemma -- that this is my first, last and only child, that I really want a girl, that they couldn't tell at the 19 week ultrasound, that I need to know. I tried straining to look at the screen but couldn't tell anything from it. Just a black screen with blurry white images fading in and out. All of a sudden though, there was a wavy line and the heartbeat came over a speaker. I started to cry. Everytime I hear the baby's heartbeat it makes me cry. Such a beautiful sound. She passed me a paper towel to dry my eyes but then what she said next made me weep for joy even more:
"Well, you got your wish. It's a girl" she told me.
"Thank you!" I said through sobs, "Thank you so much!" I wanted to hug her but I was lying down, with my jeans pulled down and jelly on my belly so I thought I'd better not.

I was thrilled. So happy. So relieved. Over the moon.

"And the baby's OK? Everything's OK?" I asked.

"The baby's great. Everything is perfect."

She let me see the screen finally but I couldn't really make it out. I asked for a picture but the baby is so much bigger than last time that she couldn't fit on the screen. So the technician took a couple of snaps of her head and torso and pieced them together. You really can't make it out too well...

It helped when she pointed out to me on the screen "There's the baby's face, arms, legs, heart, spine..." When I try to decipher it on my own I'm not really sure what I'm seeing. I caught a glimpse of the baby's face though, her nose, her eyes. My little girl.  

The one thing the woman said she couldn't really see was my cervix. As long as the baby was OK that was all that mattered to me. She said I hadn't drank enough water so she wasn't able to get a good view of my cervix. She left the room to ask someone else for advice. I was trying not to drink too much because my bladder doesn't hold much these days and they said I'd only need a couple of glasses this time. She came back in and said that because I had had spotting (or one spot, just the once anyway) she had to check that my cervix was OK so she was going to reposition the ultrasound wand thingy down below. I had to slip out of my jeans and panties. It was a bit uncomfortable but at least she didn't have to insert something which would have been VERY unpleasant. Everything seemed fine.

Relieved, happy, on Cloud 9 over my little girl, I left the office beaming. I couldn't stop smiling. The tears were flowing as well. When I got to my Mom's place I was bawling by the time she opened the door.

"It's a boy?" she assumed when she saw me crying.

"No. It's a girl!" I hugged her, sobbing tears of joy.

I decided to celebrate by buying a dress for baby. I have so many sleepers but not a lot of dress up clothes. Now that I know for sure it's a girl, I might as well have fun with it and get something cute and frilly.

I found a little pink lace dress with a flower and a bow. Perfect. I'm hoping my daughter will be a girlie girl like her Mama. Though even I went through a tomboy stage when I was a pre-teen. There were a couple of years that I refused to wear dresses. I ran around chasing frogs & snakes with dirty hair and scabby knees. Even now of course there are two sides to me. I like to be casual and comfortable and feel at home in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. But I also love pretty things and I like dressing up now and then.

At one store that I went in the clerk asked me when I was due.

"July 23rd!" I announced proudly.

"Wow. Really? Could you possibly get any bigger?"

Gee, thanks! So apparently I'm a planet and look like I'm going to pop any day now! She did try to redeem herself by saying

"At least your face isn't pudgy. I got pudgy cheeks when I was pregnant." She also added that when she saw me from the back, she wouldn't have guessed I was pregnant at all. Then she turned the corner, caught a glimpse of my belly and was like "Whoa!"

My Mom had already told me that I was huge but then I've grown up with her and I'm used to her just speaking her mind. (She's also a Scorpio. They can sting!) I don't usually expect such brutal honesty from total strangers. I'm sure she didn't mean any harm.


32 week pregnant belly



Pre-baby & hopefully post-baby belly

I do hope that I will get my figure back after I have the baby. I am going to get back into yoga and working out.

One girl that I talked to recently (who has an 8 week old baby) said that she gained 50 lbs while she was pregnant and has lost most of it already. Breastfeeding burns off A LOT. So hopefully that goes well. She did say that you have to eat extra calories to make sure that you produce enough milk. It does take a lot out of you. She has also been walking a lot. And just carrying the baby around is a workout. I tried lifting her carseat with baby in it and it was like weightlifting! Meanwhile she'd been holding it for half an hour while we talked. Swinging it back and forth like it weighed nothing.

I hope I'm able to bounce back quickly. I can't find my copy of Jillian Michaels' "The 30 Day Shred." I'll have to hunt for it. I lost more than 15 lbs when I did it a couple of years ago. I'm hoping that a lot of it is just water weight/bloating anyway. Just having the baby you lose 10 lbs instantly right?  

I was fully prepared for a girl. The name. The clothes. The room. The nursery was designed with a girl in mind. Even though the walls are turquoise, which would work for either gender, my ocean theme was leaning toward the feminine side. I had three large square canvases I'd gotten as a gift last year (and never got around to painting) and decided to do a series of mermaids with babies. I finished a second mermaid painting and now just have to do my third. This one is a bit more whimsical than the first. I've always had a thing for mermaids and there is pretty much an ocean theme throughout my entire house. One day I would love to live by the ocean. I always loved the story of the Little Mermaid, movies about mermaids. As a child I wished I was one. Ironically I was never much of a swimmer!

Apparently there are people out there that are even more fanatical about mermaids than I am. Hannah the mermaid has a very realisitic tail and even makes a living performing as a mermaid. (See video below.) If I saw her in the ocean, I'd certainly think she was the real deal!

Maybe I can take my daughter to see her one day.

There are so many fun things I want to share with my little girl -- heading to the beach, shopping, playing with dolls (I hope she likes Barbie!) Dancing ballet (if she wants to. I won't force her of course. It was my dream as a child but I never got lessons.) There is so much beauty I want to show her. Even in my own backyard we can hang out on the beach, make sandcastles, pick flowers, watch butterflies. When I see beauty, I get excited. I feel like a kid again. To see those things with a child, to watch the wonder and excitement in their eyes, experiencing things for the first time, would make it that much more special.

It feels right that it's going to be just us girls, for a while at least. Just baby and me, and Ali (my female cat) makes three. No boys allowed! Of course there will still be boys in her life -- her cousins, her uncles, her grandpa. Maybe one day a nice man will come along and join our little family. He would have to be pretty special. It will be hard for me to trust someone again and with a new baby I certainly won't be dating for quite a while. But one day, who knows? If there is one thing I've learned in the past year, it's that you just don't know. Never say never.

I am just so happy about my baby girl. My beautiful little miracle. And in 8 weeks, I get to meet her!