Its a .....Boy??? or Girl???

Officially 20 weeks (5 months) and our second sonogram was today, October 18th!!!  AND we found out whether we were having a boy or girl!  Before we get there, I should probably start from the beginning...HAHAHA!  So for the past two weeks we have been spending much of our time at the new house getting things prepared and that has left us with lots of time to debate on whether or not to find out.  Last weekend my grandparents came down to help paint the baby's room and even they were getting into the discussion.  I'm not even sure how it came about, but our debate went from defending each of our views to just wanting to be the one who could guess correctly and be right.  I proclaimed that it was a girl and Ryan insisted that the Chinese calendar was correct and it was a boy.  After careful negotiations we agreed that we would find out so one of us could prove the other wrong  ;o)  But bragging rights was not enough, we had to "make it interesting" as Ryan called it.  The correct guess would win "10 Get Out of Diaper Free" cards.  So, although we have agreed to take turns and help each other out, the winner would be allowed 10 opportunities to pass on their turn!  Honest, I felt I would win either way because I'm sure Ryan would waste all 10 of his the first week  :o)

The appointment was with a specialist office today so that we could thoroughly look at the baby's heart.  My grandfather was born with a hole in his heart, so the doctor wanted to be sure we found any issues in advance so that we could properly prepare if needed.  The baby was moving around like crazy all night before the appointment.  I'm not sure if it was just the baby or if I was anxious about the appointment and it was making the baby go crazy, but Baby Tolle kept me up all night long!  Then we get to the appointment and the baby was still moving all around the place.  It was making the tech's work a little more of a challenge, but it let us see the baby a little longer.  The tech started with what measurements she needed to get for the appointment before we
"looked around".  The baby measured 10" long and weighs approximately 13 ounces.  We thoroughly looked at the heart, which is the size of a thumb nail right now.  We could see all 4 chambers, the valves, and the blood as it entered (colored blue on the screen) and exited the heart (color red on the screen).  She even listened to each individual valve as they pumped.  I would look down at my thumb and I was amazed at the details I could see on the computer screen.  She measured the head, the abdomen and counted each finger!!  It was absolutely amazing and even more grateful when we heard that everything looked good with a healthy heart!  The tech ended up giving us over 20 sonogram pictures and it was really hard to pick which ones to post, but here are the three that we thought could show you the most. 

The first picture (above) is a traditional sonogram profile picture showing how Baby Tolle was bent in half almost the entire time with legs up over the head.  If you look closely you can see the toes (little white specs) just hanging over the head.  Also in this picture, the knee is literally touching the nose!!!  No wonder I feel little kicks constantly :o)  The second picture (below) is the new 4D picture format that is looking at the side where you can see the face with nose and mouth, little arm and again those legs!

The final picture is of the face where you can really see the nose and mouth.  We thought it looked like a little grin and wanted to share it with everyone so you could finally meet our little girl, Madelyn DeLois Tolle!!!