It's a...

After feeling the baby kick, the next big milestone we would be hitting would be our "big" ultrasound where we would find out if we were having a boy or a girl. My ob/gyn actually gave us the phone number for the perinatologist who would be doing the u/s at our 9 week appointment. You betcha I called that same day to schedule this u/s! I tried to get in as soon as they would take me. I tried to schedule it during week 17 so we would know the baby's gender before our parents came to visit us (they were coming for DH's graduation), but they wouldn't let me. They said that as little as one week can make a difference and they don't like to see their patients until they are at least 18 weeks along. Well, I wanted to at least find out before our parents flew back home, so I fibbed about my EDD and got our u/s scheduled for 17w5d. I figured just a few days couldn't really make a difference. Plus, I have heard of many women saying that their u/s techs were able to get a good guess in as early as 13 weeks...

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Some women just "have a feeling" or say it's a "mother's intuition," but I had no idea if we were having a boy or a girl. Mr. Chocosaur really wanted the baby to be a boy, because he is the only male in his family, and it is really important to him that we have a child that will be able to carry on the family name. I really didn't care either way, as long as the baby was healthy. The only real reason why I was leaning towards wanting the baby to be a boy was because then I knew DH would be happy and then I wouldn't have to worry about the baby's gender when we have our second child.

There are so many different myths out there about gender prediction. Some say that higher heart rates, particularly over 140 bpm, indicate that you are having a girl. My baby's heart rate always hovered between 135-140 bpm at each visit, meaning we should be having a boy. Then there are the Chinese gender predictor charts - according to these charts, we were going to have a boy. I've also heard that if you have a very dark/prominent linea negra, then you are having a boy. Most women do not even develop a linea negra until later on in pregnancy, but mine started to develop as early as the late first trimester. So according to this myth, I was having a boy. Then there is the Drano test - yes, you read that right - Drano, as in the household drain cleaner. I have heard many women swear by this test, stating that they have not once heard of this test failing. Unfortunately, I did not do this test so I can't attest to its accuracy. So, according to most methods of gender prediction, we were going to have a boy...


When we went in for the ultrasound, the first thing the u/s tech asked us was if we wanted to know the gender of the baby. We both emphatically answered, "Yes!" and then anxiously waited for her to do the scan. It really seemed like she was scanning everything else on the baby... she checked the brain to make sure there wasn't any fluid on the brain, she checked the heart to make sure there were four chambers and no visible defects, she checked the spinal cord, stomach, kidneys, length of the long bones, etc. and then finally she scanned between the baby's legs. I half squinted at the screen, trying to make out a male body part, but couldn't see anything... and then the tech announced that it was a girl! Haha, so that's why I didn't see anything. I had almost convinced myself that we were going to have a boy that I was fairly shocked to find out that we were having a baby girl! I immediately looked at Mr. Chocosaur to see if he had a look of disappointment on his face, but he more just had a look of surprise. I asked him if he was disappointed and he said that he was not disappointed and that he was happy that everything on the u/s showed her to be healthy. Shortly after the u/s tech finished her scan, the perinatologist came in and repeated the scan, this time going much quicker... he only briefly mentioned some of the big things he was seeing, probably because the tech had already taken so much time to show us everything. It wasn't long, though, before he confirmed that we were in fact having a baby girl. So much for all those gender prediction tools, huh?!

When we polled our families to see what they thought we were having, everyone said "boy" except for my mom who only said "girl" because she felt like someone had to. Some said that they were confident it was a boy because Mr. Chocosaur walked into the room after the u/s with a glow on his face. This made me feel a bit better about the fact that our baby was a girl, because even though DH had wanted a boy, he still looked happy after finding out we were having a girl. I was excited to be on team pink, because little girls are so much more fun to dress up. I could not wait to start buying tons of girly clothes once we found out the gender! The only thing DH had to say was that he wasn't going to let our little girl date until she is 30 - ha! Yeah, good luck with that one right?

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And with the big reveal that we were having a baby girl, I finally felt like I could go out and start buying things for the baby... up until then, I hadn't really made any baby purchases, even after we had safely made it into the second trimester. Once you start buying things for the baby, it all starts to feel so much more real....