Stubborn!

Before going to Chicago this past weekend to visit Mallorey's family and friends in Chicago, we wanted to surprise them all with the gender of our baby. Originally we had told everyone this ultrasound wasn't scheduled until June 12th. It turns out we decided to move up the appointment to the morning of June 4th instead in the hopes of shocking her parents with the gender and the names we had picked out. My family knew of the names we had selected but not the gender, so they too would have been surprised. Mal even went as far as putting together a great idea of playing Hangman with her Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother to guess the names and build the anticipation. Needless to say, the game turned out great, but the ultrasound wasn't exactly what we expected!

Although we were to leave Louisville after work on Thursday, June 4th to head north for the Windy City, Mal had re-scheduled our ultrasound for 9:30am that morning. She and I are always nervous before these appointments simply because you never know what lies ahead or what the nurses and doctors may see. But thankfully, everything up to this point had been "so far so good". We got right in to see the nurse without hardly any waiting at all. Which is always nice considering we always want to know what is going on with the baby. I mean, after all, neither of us have x-ray vision. So after we enter the room and Mal lies down on the chair for the ultrasound, I sit next to her and rub her arm softly to make sure she is as comfortable as possible. We both sit and stare at the blank LCD screen mounted on the wall across from us boiling with anticipation of seeing our baby! The nurse took a seat on the other side of Mallorey and got the ultrasound device ready and made sure we were there primarily to find out the gender. Now, from what we know, and what is usually common knowledge, the gender of any given baby can be seen when the mother is around 20 weeks along in pregnancy. At this particular time, the doctor had said Mal was about 18 weeks so we figured we were in the clear.

The nurse continued to apply the device to Mal's lower abdomen while black and white pictures began to appear on the tv screen across from us. We watched in excitement as my hands turned clammy. Talk about anxiety! But Mal never told me to stop rubbing her arm like she sometimes does when my hands get a little sweaty like that. The nurse located the baby and showed us the heart beating at a steady pace of about 160 beats per minute. It's been said before that a heart rate at that speed would indicate we are having a girl. Not to mention she has had very little morning sickness, if any at all, and both of our parents had a girl as their first child. So Mallorey and I have been thinking this whole time that we are going to have a girl, but we need the ultrasound to PROVE IT to us! Haha

After about 10-15 minutes of moving the device around on Mal's belly, trying to get a good look between the baby's legs and discover what we are going to have, the nurse had to take a break. Baby was not cooperating!!! We got some great ultrasound pictures, which I would have uploaded to this post but Mal has the camera with her at work. So by now, we still didn't know if we were going to have a boy or a girl. It was a little frustrating as time went by and the nurse had asked Mallorey to lay on her side in the hopes the baby would stir around some and part its legs for us to make the great discovery. After about 5 minutes of relaxing, the nurse came back for round two and we tried the procedure again. Only this time, we couldn't believe our eyes. Baby literally had it's legs crossed the entire time and never once moved them! At one point, the baby's right hand came into view as if it were trying to touch it's knee. I told Mal and the nurse that our baby must be laughing at us from the inside because we can't figure out if it's a boy or a girl and this is a real "knee-slapper"!! Another 10 minutes or more had passed, and unfortunately, the nurse had to call it quits and gave up. We can't blame her for trying. She did the very best she could. Mal and I were happily disappointed but could not BELIEVE the way our baby had behaved! Bad boy/girl.......

Even though we left the doctor's office that day not knowing whether we are going to have a boy or girl, it definitely made for some good laughs during our trip in Chicago. In fact, Mallorey's Mom thinks there is no question that we will be having a baby girl now. The reason is because girls would cross their legs as to not show anything whereas boys would freely do so! The pictures that were captured are fantastic and we can clearly see that our baby has grown. The picture of the baby's toes is my favorite only because they looked SO tiny! We can't wait to go back on June 26th for our next ultrasound appointment. Keep your fingers crossed for us! We'll keep everyone posted!!!

Randy