It's a...

Boy!!! Looks like my maternal instincts have already kicked in.  I knew this all along.  It just took seeing his, ahem, not so little, manhood to prove it.  We went in for our 20 week appointment first.  We had to see a different doctor because ours just had surgery.  She was really nice & gave me some tips on sleeping better & for a possible gluten intolerance.  I'm trying to watch the gluten I take in to see if that keeps me from getting sick at night.  It's been a lot better the past few weeks, but regardless, I should watch eating so much gluten because it's not good for you anyway.  After our appointment we had a quick lunch & then went back  for the sonogram.  I was so anxious!  When we got into the room she told us she would do the gender part last.  And in this case, it was after two hours.  She kept saying it was one stubborn baby.  He was asleep, curled up with his butt in the air & facing in, so all we could see was his back side.  He would not move for anything.  She poked & jiggled as much as she could and he just stayed asleep.  Does this mean he'll be a good sleeper out of the womb as well?  I hope so.  After an hour she had me get up and pee & move around a little bit.  When she started again, he flipped for about 10 seconds, so she got a pretty good profile shot, & then he went right back to his original position & started sucking his thumb.  It was amazing to see all this.  Last time we had a sonogram was at 8 weeks, and he definitely didn't look like a baby yet.  I didn't know they were going to do this, but she even got a 3-D shot of the side of his face.  It's just a little creepy, but very cool to see his facial features.  I was worried that because he wouldn't move, we wouldn't be able to see the goods, but she assured me that wouldn't be a problem.  Finally, she zoomed in & said "See that?  You've got yourself a baby boy!"  Chadd was beside himself.  It was pretty funny.  He shouted "I'm a man!"  (I had a dream we had a sonogram last week & they told us it was a boy & Chadd started screaming & dancing around the room shouting that he was a man.  In fact, I had two dreams about the sex being revealed to me last week & both times it was a boy.) She kept trying to get him to uncross his legs after this & he did eventually stretch them out for a short while.  She got a picture of the heart, but not clear enough, so she finally gave up & said we would have to come back for another sonogram.

After a few minutes, a specialist came into the room & explained to us that the tech may have seen a possible  problem with one of his feet, and that she would check it out further.  When she pulled up the image, she showed us that his right foot is "clubbed" (this is an awful term, so I think I will refer to it with its technical term, talipes).  It means that his foot didn't grow the way it was supposed to.  Instead of growing forward, it grew rotated towards the other foot.  I think Chadd and I were both in shock, especially after being so elated from hearing the gender news.  I didn't really know what to say or ask.  I did ask if his foot was formed correctly, and she said that yes, it is, it just grew the wrong way.  There are several different ways to treat it, and we really won't know what way is best until he's born.  We will have to meet with a specialist in a week for a consultation.  I know it could be much worse, and that this is a very fixable problem.  It just really stinks to know there is something wrong with our baby.  We were assured that sometimes this just happens, & that it wasn't anything Chadd or I did.  It makes me really sad to think of my child being in a cast & a brace for at least the first year of his life.  And like my sister-in-law said, it's scary being a new mom in the first place, but already knowing you are going to have to overcome difficulties makes it even scarier.  Everyone that I have talked to has said that it's really not a big deal, very common, especially in boys, & totally fixable.  Again, I am so thankful that so far everything else about the baby is healthy, and I know we will overcome this & that everything will work out like it's supposed to.  We are in good hands, and will be taken care of.  

On that note, I'm excited to finally be able to do some clothes shopping (I may have already done some.. a lot.. on Friday :)
Almost forgot... Chadd got to celebrate his first father's day on Sunday.  I got him a sweet coffee mug that has a mustache on it & says "dad".  We had breakfast with our neighbors.  I took my dad out for lunch at panera (fancy, right?) & then we had dinner with Chadd's family.  It was a great day.  Then on Saturday, we had a birthday/gender reveal party for Chadd.  We took his grandpa's boat out with his family & some of our friends for a little while.  It was really hard not to slip up and call the baby "he".  When we got back, we had everyone pick a pink bow or a mustache to wear.  I think the mustaches outnumbered the pink bows :) After an awesome dinner prepared by his dad (ribeye & pork chop sandwiches, yum), we got the cake out. My boss at the after school program owns our local Dairy Queen & made a blizzard cake for us with pink bows, mustaches, & question marks all over it.  After Chadd blew out the candles, he got to cut it and, drum roll, there was blue icing in the middle!  I'm glad we did this, it was a lot of fun keeping everyone on their toes, and a fun way to celebrate Chadd's birthday (with the help of Joe, he got a smoker & some bbq tools from me...I expect dinner tonight).  I don't know if there was much surprise, since I had expressed all along that I thought it was a boy, but it was a good time regardless.