How we found out what we're having

I'm 20 weeks today, but all I have for belly photos to share is this one from 15 weeks, 6 days.

OK, so now that I've got that out of the way it's time to share how we found out. I knew I wanted it to be special...something unique to our family....something I hadn't heard of before.....

Here's how we did it:

All four of us went to 19 week ultrasound appointment at 4pm on Friday afternoon, February 11th (incidentally, the same day in 2004 I told PapaBear we were pregnant with Sam) We arrived armed with a Christmas present that hadn't been played with yet and a couple of candy canes. I wanted to focus on the screen and what the tech said and not have the kids be bouncing off the walls.

Sam surprised us all by chatting with, Angie, our technician, through the whole thing. He could identify hands that waved and asked questions about what he was seeing. Julia was content to eat her candy cane and play with her new toy. When it was time to look everyone looked away, except Sam. He had an important job to do. He went to the desk with Angie who wrote out It's a ______. Sam brought the card over to the rest of us and read what it said. I couldn't have been prouder of my boy! He just learned to read in January and I thought this would be a fun way to include him and celebrate his big accomplishment. He did great!

Fast forward to Monday (Valentine's Day) when we invited family over for dinner. Due to schedule conflicts only PapaBear's parents were able to attend so we made some phone calls later that night. Nobody knew we decided to find out and had no clue that they were about to know the gender too so it was pretty fun for the kids to hand out their valentines that read:





























Our baby girl was so active that other than getting a glimpse of her four chambered heart, we didn't get to do all the measurements they want so I'm going back in on Friday for another look. I will ask them to look for one other thing while I'm there....I mentioned a prayer request on twitter this morning and it relates to something they saw in her brain. She has a choroid plexus cyst that I'm praying fervently is GONE by the time I go back in on Friday. This could be nothing more than a blocked duct, but it's also an indicator of Trisomy 18. I wish the doctor hadn't even mentioned that part since a cyst seen at this stage of brain development (18-20weeks) is typically gone soon after the 20 week mark and there were no other indicators for it, but it still worries me. I'm measuring a little under 20 weeks so by the time my ultrasound on Friday morning it could still be there and still be considered normal. Obviously our heart's desire is for it to be GONE and for her heart to be normal as well. Would you pray for that with us? We would be most grateful.