Buttons & Booties: Boy or Girl??

First off I need to apologise. I've been a bit quiet with posting lately as we have had a lot of problems with our internet (Optus are no longer my friends!). But I hope the news I share with you in this post makes up for it!

Lots of exciting things have happened over the last couple of weeks. I can feel Marble moving now - it is such a strange sensation. It's like I'm really excited over something and my tummy has butterflies. It is rather distracting though....I can be in the middle of a conversation, Marble will move and then I don't hear the rest of what is being spoken about! Mr J still can't feel it, not from lack of trying. Everytime I feel movement, Mr J gets excited and puts his hand on my belly, but he gets nothing. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, as Marble gets stronger he will feel it.

The nursery is coming along nicely. We have bought some furniture (cot and change table) and at the moment there are blobs of all different greens on the wall, as we are sampling paint colours. After we paint the walls, I'll share some pictures with you and show you how good it is looking!

Something else we have decided to do is to go on a short babymoon!!! Babymoons are all the rave at the moment with places offering special Babymoon packages or Mum and Dad-to-be Bliss Packages. I never thought Mr J would agree to this, but in the end he suggested it. Mr J is heading off to the FIFA World Cup in Brazil for the month of June, so he gets a nice long holiday anyway but now I get a little one with him too. I'm thinking maybe a nice resort somewhere along the coast or in the hinterland, with a little indulgent spa package and buffet breakfast. And hopefully, before Mr J jets off across the world.

The most exciting news however, is we went for our 20 week ultrasound last week. Leading up to the scan we had decided we wanted to find out the gender of our baby and we also had told family that that was our plan. We had some very excited grandmas, great grandmas, aunties and friends. In the days before the scan we received so many messages from people reminding us to let them know if Marble was a boy or a girl. There was so much excitement, even Mr J was counting down the days till the scan.

But I found it very hard to share this excitement. One minute I would think the ultrasound will be perfect, Marble will be healthy and everything will be working the way it should be. But more often, I found myself thinking that this was going to be a very difficult day, with terrible memories for the future. I think it's normal for mums-to-be to worry and the websites and books I'd looked at mentioned things, like placental abruption, silent miscarriage or deformation, and sent my imagination wild. My recommendation......don't google anything!

Nevertheless, Mr J and I were both pretty happy when the day of the ultrasound arrived. I could feel Marble rolling around, kicking and having lots of fun during the morning of the scan, so my nerves settled a little. We walked into the room for the ultrasound and Mr J tightly held my hand. And then Marble was on the screen. The lady scanned all different parts of Marble's body, she looked at:

the brain and cerebellum (this amazed me, it was so clear........and healthy and big!)
legs, feet and toes
arms, hand and fingers
heart
face, chin and head
spine
bladder, stomach and kidneys

Marble didn't make it easy for her. I had to lie on my side and back during the scan as Marble was squished into the right hand part of my uterus, upside down doing placental face plant! It was so reassuring to find out that everything was perfect, that there were no abnormalities and all the measurements were correct. Just for the record, we are still due September 2.

Now is Marble a boy or a girl?? The lady had a look. Mr J and I had no idea what we were looking at, but she was pretty adamant that Marble is a little boy!!

Are we happy? Of course we are. Marble is healthy and strong.....and an added bonus is now Mr J has his little footballer :)