Like music to our ears...

I took the day off today and Landon took a long lunch and we got to see our sweet baby moving all around on the ultrasound machine for about 30 minutes today at our 20 week ultrasound.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced.  He/she is about 15 ounces--almost a pound, which is about 5 ounces bigger than all the baby books I've been reading said he/she would be at this point.  We got to see the arms and legs and feet and face and his/her whole sweet little body, all stretched out, face down.  We got to see the baby cover his/her face with their hands and cross their little feet at the ankles.  The little heart was beating at 150 bpm and everything looked good.  We got to see the arteries and the kidneys and all the other little organs.  And the doctor said everything looked about as good as he's seen, which was so reassuring.  It was the craziest feeling to feel the baby moving and then actually be able to see what was going on on the screen.  Landon and I just stood (or in my case, laid) there, holding hands, staring at our little baby on the screen.  It was almost surreal, but at the same time made it so much more real that there really is a sweet, little baby growing inside of me. 

Then, after about 30 minutes of seeing our sweet baby move and twist and do headstands for a while (as the nurse called it when the baby looked like it was balancing on his/her head for a lot of the time!), she told us to turn our heads away and she would see if she could tell if it was a boy or a girl.  So, even though we wanted to see :), we turned away.  All of about 3 seconds later, she told us that she got it and we could look again.  And, she said she was about 99.9% sure, so it must have been pretty obvious!

She took it and wrote it on a cards for us and then put that card in the sealed envelop, which is now sitting on our dining room table, until our family and some close friends come over tomorrow night to find out with us!  We're ready to find out, but honestly, after hearing that everything with the baby looks good and that he/she is growing and developing right on track, getting to find out the sex of the baby just feels like icing on the cake.

And, to add even more icing to the cake on an already awesome Friday, tonight as we were lying down after eating dinner, the baby was moving or kicking or something a lot.  So I told Landon to put his hand there for a minute and see if he could feel it.  We've tried for him to feel it once before, but no luck.  This time though, the baby was moving a little that he could kinda feel but it didn't really feel like anything for sure to him.  Then, he felt it!  I think it kicked (or punched or something) and he felt it before I even said anything.  So exciting.  What a perfect ending to today.

What a difference a few weeks makes!