Halfway, Enough Already, Anatomy Scan

Is it just me or is this pregnancy flying by?  I am already halfway (over halfway, really) to my due date.  Today marks 20w6d.  It’s amazing to me.  It seems like only last week I was coming out of my bathroom on my birthday holding a (very) positive pee stick and saying “good morning, daddy” to my husband.  I am relishing every single day of this pregnancy.  Even now, as the evening heartburn is getting worse, I’m just so happy to be carrying this child.  Every movement (and there are LOTS now!) and every kick (there have been some doozies) just makes me smile and makes my heart swell with love.  I never knew just how happy being pregnant would make me.  It’s one of those things that you build up in your mind and sometimes it just doesn’t live up to the hype.  Not this.  This has far surpassed all the hype I have built up over the years.  I know that there are complications that could still arise but for the time being everything is better than I ever imagined.  I could not have asked for a more picture perfect pregnancy so far.  Even the queasies, the migraines, the heartburn, the fatigue and the new tendonitis/carpal tunnel have not put a damper on this experience for me.  I know of so many women that have had terrible pregnancies with complication after complication and I feared that it would be like for me (like I said, I’m only halfway so anything can still happen).  I feared that since this was going to be my only pregnancy and getting here was such a fight that I would have to suffer through 9 months of hell.  So far (fingers crossed) it has been just the opposite.  I’m more than thankful and grateful for this opportunity and I hope the good fortune keeps up.

Now for the griping:

Ever since my husband made the funny comment of “if it’s a girl I’m going to send it back” to our neighbors, they have done nothing but pick on him about it.  Every time they see us it’s “oh, how’s the baby girl doing?”  And “when do you find out that it’s a girl?”  And “see what you have to look forward to when your baby girl is born”.  They are not nice about it.  Their tone and their facial expressions are very snide and sarcastic.  The way they say these things makes it seem like having a girl is the end of the world for my husband.   It’s like they can’t wait to see my husband disappointed with his child before it’s even born.  And the kicker is…they have 2 girls!  It’s not my fault that your 18 month old girl cries and fusses and won’t let you eat at a restaurant without screaming her head off.  It’s not my fault that you told my husband weeks ago that if you knew she would act that way you wouldn’t have had her.  Yes, my husband wants a boy.  HE’S a boy and he already has a boy so he knows what to do with a boy.  He’s not into pink and dresses and dolls.  However, my husband’s first concern is that we have a healthy child and that our dream comes true to parent a child together.  The day before our anatomy scan they were on their porch and we had been outside.  They called over to us with a “so what time tomorrow do you find out it’s a girl?”  We tell them and we walk over to talk to them.  The husband said something else to my husband and I about lost it.  BJ started talking to the wife and I looked dead at the husband and said, (in a not nice voice with a not nice look on my face) “you know, he’s still going to love it if it’s a girl.”  And he smiled strangely and said, “I know.”  And then I continued with “and he’s NOT going to be disappointed if it’s a girl.”  And he said, “he’s not?”  I said, “no” and I looked away.  I couldn’t look at him in the face anymore for fear of punching him in it.  Just then another neighbor was driving by and she stopped briefly to talk to me so I was able to remove myself from the volatile situation that was brewing.  I like these people and I think they are good people but for the love of God, stop trying to diminish my child’s life.  Later BJ told me that the husband told him that he made me mad.  BJ told him that I was tired of getting such a hard time about the possibility of it being a girl (and to set the record straight, it’s not about it being a girl it’s about THEM hounding us about how awful it would be to have a girl).  Then BJ told me that I needed to chill because they were just kidding around.  I said, “I will not chill about this.  Having a girl is not bad.  They are making me feel like you will be disappointed in your child and no mother EVER wants to feel like the father of her baby is upset because of the gender which is completely out of our control.”  He sort of understood where I was coming from when I explained it that way.  I probably am over reacting but in their kidding of my husband they were making me feel like crap.  I was almost in tears a couple of times because of things they said that were negative about girls.  Maybe it was done just to get a rise out of BJ but it really hurt MY feeling to hear it all.  Anyway, have any of you mamas out there ever encountered something like that?

Now for the fun stuff:

Our anatomy scan was Friday morning.  We drove up separately because we each had to work afterward.  I was nervous, of course.  Mainly for the health of our baby.  I had felt it move here and there so I knew it was alive but that’s all I knew at this point.  I hopped up on the table and the wand was on my stomach and in no time we heard the beating heart.  It was 149bpm which concerned me because a week ago it had been 157.  The tech said it was fine.  There on the screen was a HUGE (compared to 12 weeks) baby’s head.  I fell in love all over again.  Measurements were taken and everything looked good.  We got a really good picture of the feet side by side and some good profile pictures, too.  And then it was switched over to 4D and oh my gosh…the baby was beautiful.  The hands were by its face and it looked like it was posing for the picture.  The tech had a hard time getting the arm and hand measurements because the baby wouldn’t move its hands away from its face.  Then we saw the baby holding its own hand…I melted again.  Then came the gender reveal.  Now let me say this; I’ve always thought it was going to be a girl.  Anyone that has ventured a guess has guessed a girl.  I’ve told BJ numerous times that he better be prepared to hear that it’s a girl.  When the money shot came up on the screen I didn’t even need the tech to tell me because I saw the 3 white lines myself.  We are having a baby girl.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  The tech handed us the pictures and went to get the doctor.  I started crying as I looked at the pictures.  I said to BJ, “I hope I’m a better mom to my girl than my mom was to her girls.”  And he said, “Uh, you are not dancing on a pole, doing drugs and getting involved with men that treat you like crap.”  And I said (through happy tears), “I meant emotionally”.  And he said, “you are way better off emotionally than you mother.”  I couldn’t stop crying.  I am going to write a whole post on my thoughts about having a girl but for right now I just have to say how excited I am.  The doctor came in and took a look and in those few short minutes baby girl decided to show us that she wants to be a gymnast.  Up on the screen was a picture of her legs bent all the way forward until her toes were tickling her forehead!  We all busted out laughing.  The doctor was trying to coax her into putting her toes in her mouth.  It was hysterical.  My baby girl is quite the character already.  As we looked at the 4D picture again I told BJ that she has his mouth.  He doesn’t see it but he did say that the way she was posing means that she’s already prissy.  We laughed about that, too.  It was a great appointment that ended with me feeling very emotionally overwhelmed but extremely happy and grateful.  She’s healthy (as far as anyone can tell) and she’s measuring exactly with our due date and she’s funny and she’s the light of my life.  Now if we could only find a name for her.