Baby 2.0 - 20 Week Ultrasound

We had our "20 week ultrasound" last Monday. It was really only 18 or 19 weeks, but this is the only detailed ultrasound we'll have during the pregnancy. My OB/GYN's office has ultrasound machines that they use for the 8 week ultrasound, but we go to a different location for the 20 week ultrasound which is performed by a dedicated technologist who takes measurements and looks for any abnormalities, such as spinal defects. The 20 week ultrasound also comes with glossy pictures printed on 5"x7" photo stock instead of the ticker tape pictures from the earlier ultrasound.

In the picture below, you can see the baby curled up with it's head to the left. I also just realized that the arm is up by the head.

We had hoped to find out the gender of the baby at this ultrasound, but were disappointed. Aaron was very clearly a boy and the tech took a picture of him that left no doubt. But this tech just said it looked like a girl to her, but she wouldn't bet her life on it. She showed us where it looked like there was no penis, but you couldn't be sure it wasn't hiding somewhere. I realize it is harder to confirm the baby is a girl, but I know sometimes they can tell with some certainty that it is a girl and I hoped she was going to get a better view for us. But she never did. Since she knew up front that we had a boy and were kind of hoping for a girl this time, she could have been biased to show us what we wanted to see. Who knows. She wasn't nearly as friendly as the tech was last time. In fact, she was so quiet during the procedure, I called my OB's office 2 days later to check that the results of the scan were normal. (They were.)

You can clearly see the spine in the photo above. In the photo below, it's a little less clear what you are seeing, but basically the baby is in a fetal position, with it's butt up, legs pointing to the right. And you can see an arm coming down from the left side with a hand by the one thigh.

We had been hoping our first baby would be a girl because we knew we'd have more than one and thought it might be preferable to have an older sister to help out with the new baby. And maybe we thought a girl would be sweeter than a boy. Plus we had a girl's name picked out. But I couldn't imagine being happier than I am with Aaron. He is sweet and fun and I think he will be a good big brother. So we'd be happy with another little boy. But we would like to have the experience of at least one daughter so it would be nice if this one is a girl. But we don't want to assume it is on the chance that we would feel some disappointment to find out in October that our Audrey is really a boy. So we are thinking about boy's names just in case and refraining from referring to Baby 2.0 as "Audrey" or "little sister".

I've been feeling Baby 2.0 moving around more, but still not enough for Thom to feel it from the outside. I've been feeling better than the first trimester, but although I'm not nauseous or queasy (most of the time), I still don't have much appetite. I remember with Aaron my appetite returned after the first trimester, although I retained an aversion to meat, including poultry, for most of the pregnancy. My allergies have been driving me up the wall (something I attribute to pregnancy rhinitis) and I pretty much can't sleep without taking Benedryl. Although last night, even with Benedryl, I spent part of the night on the couch where I could sleep semi-reclined which seemed to help. I guess it is all preparing me for the sleepless nights to come.