Ducky makes it's film debut!

Yesterday, Steve, Granny and myself went downtown for our big ultrasound.  It was the first (and hopefully only) time we got to sneak a peak at the little one inside.  Right away we found Ducky was head up, with it's head on my left side and feet down.  One hand was up at it's face (though we couldn't tell if it was sucking it's thumb or not).  We checked out everything, head, abdomen, heart (we could see all four chambers pumping and beating), arms, legs, kidneys (both are there!), spine, hands, everything!  The baby is growing well and looking healthy.  It was funny too because as soon as the scan started, the baby totally started kicking at the probe.  This baby does NOT appreciate any pressure against my stomach.  If I am leaning on my stomach, against a counter or too much on my tummy in bed, the baby will kick to make me move back.   So the baby was not a fan of the probe, pushing down on it.  When we were told Ducky was head up, it made a lot of sense because most of the movement I've been feeling is pretty low and usually in the middle.  

Near the end, the tech asked us if we were interested in knowing the gender.  Yes, yes we are!!  She moved around to get a view of Ducky's goods.  That's when she announced we will be welcoming another.......GIRL!!  A new little daughter is coming to our family!  We were all pretty darn excited.  I have to be honest, I had been hoping for a girl, because I love all the frilly things that girls get to have, headbands, pink, bows, dresses, etc, and was really hoping to get to use a lot of Jilly's things again.  Now, we get to!  After we left the ultrasound, I sent out a big text to all our family about Ducky, and then called my step-dad.  I told him "We just wanted to let you know that your new grandbaby is going to be a Princess Duck!  Ducky is a girl!!"  Hehehe, it was fun.

A super big thanks to Tawnya (and Jaxson and Lucy) for watching our kids so we were able to really enjoy the appt and pay close attention (Jilly had such a good time, she whined and cried the whole way home because she only wanted to stay and play with Jaxson!).  When we picked them up, I asked Jilly (for the 1,178,942nd time) if the baby was a boy or girl.  She replied (for the 1,178,937th time) "girl" and I told her she was right!  The baby is a baby sister!  I told Jason he was going to have a little sister, and dude, was that a weird concept for my brain to wrap itself around.  My teeny little baby guy is going to be a big brother and have a baby sister to take care of!  Crazy!

So everything is right on track for Ducky to make her debut in mid-June.  We'll see who this little girl takes after: her sister (born at 40 weeks) or her brother (born at just 38 weeks 5 days).  If I get my way (HA!) she'll be born at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend.  I'm shooting for May 27th, so I can keep all my kids' birthdays on the 27ths of each month.  That'd put us at just about 38 weeks.  Two weeks early sounds nice, doesn't it?  ;-)  We'll see how much that works out.  We decided to plan for another out-of-hospital birth, but this time we'll be going to a nice birth center in Kirkland.  I'm excited to tour it soon!  It looks awesome.  And then I'll have experienced three different kinds of birth settings: hospital, home and birth center!  Granted, the home birth wasn't my own home, but it was close enough. We're getting more excited all the time!  Now that we know Ducky is a girl, we can really get to planning all the logistics.  Next on the list: figuring out car seat configurations for the car, sleeping arrangements, bedding and definitely some new clothes!  Because Ducky will be a summer baby and Jilly was a winter baby, not everything will work.  Those thick fleece sleepers won't work as well for July as they did for December. ;-)  Excellent!  I love shopping!!!