Oh boy do I have news for you!

So our morning started out with a splash...literally. With water mysteriously leaking FROM the chandelier in our dining area. The ceiling was soaked. This is just how the VeeDubs roll. We can't do anything easily.

So after a call to our builder who's there right now fixing the only water breakage I want to see between now and October 18, we headed out for the big appointment!

I got many really nice and thoughtful texts and calls on the way--so thank you for those, my friends. I really needed to hear the reality that today was an exciting day and I needed to be HAPPY about it! For whatever reason, I've just had a sinking feeling that it was going to be another day of bad news. Really wish I could shake that constant fear, but it's coming with time.

So I unrolled my windows and jammed to this tune on repeat, knowing that whatever news we heard today, we would hear it together and make it through.



The ultrasound was first, and she did all the measurements and such before we could see "the goods." To our extreme relief, bV is perfectly healthy and measuring on target in all the right places. Might I also mention that this is the appointment where you have to have a full bladder while they're poking around down there. Torture, I tell you, torture!

In a hysterical moment, bV was also very shy--positioned breech with the feet tucked in covering the genital area. The ultrasound tech (who we've grown to know and love), laughed with us that we would be the first people in her entire 25 year career that she would have to send away without knowing the gender of their baby. Of course that would be our luck, of course.

So she fished around for awhile and took some other measurements, hoping bV would shift a little. And shift, she did.

That's right, SHE! bV is a girl! Here she is laughing about it:

And here's a sweet shot of her perfect face:

And, for the final shot of the day, a very ironic pageant wave (in perfect form, might I add) for all her people:

It's all still sinking in and we are very excited, but my favorite part of the whole morning was when Joey was sitting thoughtfully while we were waiting for the doctor and exploded into a smile and said, "Guess what I just realized?" I said, "What, babe?"

"I get to walk her down the aisle someday!"

And that, my friends, is what life is all about. Happy Monday!

Hump day, bump day!

bV's the size of a mango!
At about 6.0 inches long and weighing in at about 8.5 ounces, he's getting there!

bV at 19 weeks:
- Developing a protective coating over his skin, called vernix caseosa. It's greasy and white and you may see some of it at birth.
- Working on his five senses. Nerve cells for his sense of taste, hearing, sight and smell are developing in his brain.
via thebump.com

Almost halfway there! Monday's the big gender reveal day, and we're so excited. That is also my first appointment with my new doctor, so I'm excited to get to know him on a more personal basis and learn when he schedules C-sections so my OCD can really kick into overdrive and I can start planning.

I also think that after this ultrasound I'll feel more comfortable starting to put the nursery together and really wrapping my head around the idea that we're having this baby. If I'm honest, I don't really think I've felt or believed much of this pregnancy for the last 19 weeks. Seeing bV again will definitely be another big milestone, and I can't wait!

On why nurses need better gamefaces.

Disclaimer: this post is going to seem very doomy and gloomy as you read it, but it has a happy ending, I promise.

So we had our 15/16 week appointment today, which was both happy and sad because we knew we would get to hear the heartbeat again, but it was also my last appointment ever with my dear, dear Dr. Long before he takes his new job in the ghetto of Ohio.

Anywho, before the Dr. came in, the nurse did her jibbity-do, which involved blood pressure (perfect score, thank you), weight (nothing gained, thank you) and heart beat.

She couldn't find it.

She pushed and prodded and moved that little machine all over my belly as the look on her face grew more and more worried.

I'd seen that look before.

Twice, actually.

I nearly threw up.

She set the machine gently on the table and said she was going to get the Dr. for him to give it a go, and if not we'd go right in for an ultrasound.

As I promised in the opening line, this has a very happy ending and Dr. Long immediately found the heartbeat and all is well with bV. But those 10 minutes in the middle were just awful. This is why I think all nurses should take a course in Gameface101. I've seen all the looks--from all the nurses--and none have ever even remotely hidden it from me. For the sake of mothers and fathers everywhere whose bad news isn't actually bad news, let's make this a course in nursing school, shall we?

And then we concluded the final appointment I will ever have with one of the greatest Doctors I have ever met. I pushed him for a name as to which other Doc in the practice he would recommend, and as luck would have it I learned at one point or another, ALL the other Docs in the practice were once his very own residents. Which is wonderful, but I still wanted a name. So I asked him point blank, "If it was your daughter and you had to hand the scalpel to another Doctor in this practice, which one would it be?"

I was crying sobbing, so that probably helped me get my answer.

So, we move past today's appointment knowing that I'm in good hands and all is well with bV. June 3 is the next big date on our family calendar...will bV be a boy or a girl? We'll know then!

I'll live in a van down by the river if that's what it takes.

I got two letters in the mail last week. Both from my OBGYN office.

One announcing the two! new! amazing! additions to their practice! One fresh out of med school eager to deliver 'da babies, and the other  a "friend of the practice" for years. Oh great, two more people that get to see my girlie bits between now and October. It's fine.

The second letter was not as exclamatory. My doctor, my beloved Dr. who has sliced open my stomach to remove one Alex Joseph Van Wormer, performed the procedure for my sweet tWIPs, and was there to hold my hand in anger and sadness with my bDub, is leaving the practice. In June.

The extreme tragedy is that I totally can't hate him for it, because he's going to some inner city hospital in the hoods of Ohio that treats the underserved and non-insured. And he's going to teach other doctors there how to be as awesome as he is.

But the internal struggle that I have is that I sorta do hate him for it because he's the only person I want holding that scalpel and slicing this child out of me. My scar from Alex is perfect & healed like a dream. He knows my body & what it's been through. I trust him implicitly.

I was able to squeeze in one last appointment with him before he leaves, during which I plan to kick and moan and groan and cry and otherwise act like a 13-year-old girl whose parents won't let her go to the movies past her curfew. Whhhyyyyy meeeeee?

There are 7 other doctors in the practice, and save the new girl (and one other one that should probably never meet me in a dark alley) they're all very competent, trustworthy, good doctors. So I'm sure I'll be fine. However, I do have a plan B to escape to the ghettos of Ohio (not hard to find?), shred my insurance cards and just do what I must. You know, mother's instinct and all that.