It's A...

Our ultrasound on Friday revealed that Baby Schardt is a BOY and Matt and I could not be more excited! I have to admit that I was completely shocked. Ever since Baby Schardt started moving a few weeks ago, I started getting vibes that it might be a girl. Matt was equally as shocked, he thought it was more than likely going to be a girl too, so you can imagine how excited and surprised we were when the ultrasound technician said, it looks like we have a boy. I don’t think the smile has left Matt’s face since he found out! There is always the caution that ultrasound readings are not 100% accurate, but when she showed us his lower half on the screen, it was pretty apparent to both Matt and I that we had a little boy on our hands so I am pretty confident in the news.

It was equally exciting to be able to share the news with our wonderful family and friends. Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and excitement for us, it truly does make this experience that much more special when you have special people in your life to share it with.

In addition to finding out the sex of the baby, the 20 week ultrasound is supposed to measure the growth of the baby, confirm the fetal age, ensure that all its vital organs are in place, and look at the location and size of the placenta. They take a ton of pictures of the baby; I was very surprised at how thorough the ultrasound was. We were able to see the heart, brain, spine, lungs, stomach, spleen, kidneys, and eyes all starting to develop. To be honest, most of the images she showed us of Baby Schardt’s organs looked like black blobs, but it was comforting to know they were there and growing.

Our little man was moving around quite a bit during the exam, and it was so cute to see his little hands and legs crossed as he posed for his pictures. One thing that definitely stood out to Matt and I, was his long legs. I think our boy is going to be a tall one, but I guess that won’t come as a surprise to anyone judging by the height of his parents. The ultrasound technician will send the report of the visit to the doctor for analysis, and when we go in for our next appointment in April they will be able to explain in more detail the overall health of our baby, but the technician said that all the measurements were right down the middle which is good, nothing was too small or too big. She says he weighs one pound and is about the size of a squirrel without the tail. She is also tracking our due date about three days earlier than the 8 week ultrasound, but that really does not matter much since babies rarely come on their actual due date. Overall, I could not be happier about the visit and I am so thankful to have a healthy baby boy growing inside me!

Below are some ultrasound photos. To save our little guy some decency, I will not post the photo of his boy parts but here are a few to give you all an idea of what he looks like.

Here he is facing down toward my cervix...you can see his little spine and head pretty well (my apologies for the crooked scans).

This is my favorite photo from the batch she gave us. I feel like he already has his dad's lean, muscular legs...we may have a basketball player on our hands :)

And last but not least, a long awaited baby bump photo. I finally got around to getting Matt to take one of me.

21 1/2 week Baby Bump.