The Results Are In!

     

Well, after twenty-one long weeks of waiting, we finally were able to discover the gender of this little in-utero acrobat. Sawyer had daycare and preschool last Tuesday and was going on a trip to the farm to pick out a pumpkin and we had my doctor's appointment that morning at 9 so it was a big day for all of us! At my appointment we had the anatomy ultrasound first, which lasted a whole thirty minutes, which is way longer and thorough then I remember Sawyer's anatomy scan being. The sonographer was so great and communicated every step of the way of what she was looking for. Baby's heartbeat was 159, all four chambers of the heart looked great, the spine was closed (something I was worried about since I wasn't regularly taking my prenatal with folic acid in the beginning due to nausea), both hemispheres of the brain looked good, two kidneys were visible, the diaphragm was in the right spot and ultimately everything looked perfect (insert audible sigh of relief!). 

In the very beginning of the ultrasound this is how our baby made it's first impression..... digging for gold in it's nose! Then we couldn't help but notice immediately afterwards that hand went directly to it's mouth. Hahaha so classy. 

 After about 25 minutes of identifying parts and measuring them, we finally moved on to see what kind of goods this baby was sportin'. I had been looking for boy parts the whole time, but the 

sonographer moved so quickly and the images were hard to decipher so I hadn't seen anything definite yet. I had mentioned beforehand that we already had a four year old son and that I was pretty certain this baby was a boy too. In fact the night before I had a super restless night of sleep filled with at least ten or so dreams that we were having a boy. So....you can imagine my surprise when she said "Well, looks like your son is going to have a little sister" and wrote "It's a girl!" on the photo below. 

 WHAT?!! 

I was (and still am) in shock!! 

I immediately got all teary and had to be given a tissue. No, not teary out of disappointment, but out of pure happiness! I guess deep, deep down somewhere I wanted a girl??? Maybe because I know this is our last baby? I even surprised myself with my emotional reaction. Matt then confessed he had a hunch the whole time it was a girl. Sneaky sneakster never even once mentioned that to me! He said he thought we would end up following in the steps of both my brother and sister who have had a boy followed by a girl. Also a bunch of my cousins who are pregnant right now too all happen to be having girls as well! Looks like they come in waves! 

I had a bunch of people that morning texting me asking me what the gender was, but I wanted to do something fun to announce it so we hurried home and I set these pumpkins up to deliver the message. 

When we picked Sawyer up from daycare we asked him if he wanted the baby to be a boy or a girl and he said "A grill. Because then we will have two mommy's and two daddy's in our family", apparently he wants an even ratio of boys and girls in the fam! So the little dude got his wish of a baby sister! 

The next day at school my friends surprised me with a "It's a girl" balloon, card and gift bag with her first two outfits and socks. Let the influx of pink begin! May I present to you her future homecoming outfit....

We have her first name picked out, but are still settling on the middle name, although we have a few contenders. Her first name is one syllable so I wanted a three syllable middle name so that she has 7 syllables in her full name just like Matt, Sawyer and I do.  I also didn't want to have a middle name ending in -y, -i or -e because I thought it sounded too sing-songy with our last name ending in -i, but it has been super difficult to find a middle name we both like that falls within those guidelines so it looks like I'm going to have to let one or both of those requirements go! Oh well, we have another nineteen weeks to figure it out! 

I keep looking at the ultrasound photo on our fridge of the VERY visible three lines that depict there's a female baking away in there and just laugh because I still can't quite believe we are going to be parents of a little girl!! Eeeek! Somebody pinch me! :) 

Half Way

Here is my 19.5 week belly in all it's glory. I've been feeling the baby kick a lot lately, but Matt and Sawyer have yet to feel it from the outside. 

And just for comparison I went back to our blog in 2009 and pulled this photo up, which was my first belly shot of Sawyer when I was approximately 21 weeks. 

One more week until we find out the gender! I can't wait since I'm dying to do some spring  fall cleaning and would like to know whether to keep or give away some of this little boy's things from when he was a baby. 

Speaking of the little boy, I haven't been very good about documenting all the funny things his four year old self has been doing. I finally figured out how he says "Really" which he says often. He says it exactly like "Whirly" for example: "Mom, I whirly want a waffle for breakfast" or "I whirly like riding my bike", both of which are true statements. 

He has always been good about playing by himself which has been nice for us, but now he is more vocal about what he is playing so we get to be in on it even from another room. His imagination is going wild and he does all sorts of animated voices which are hilarious to hear. He also has been wanting mom, dad, grandma or grandpa to play zombie or bad guys with him, the first of which involves chasing him around with your arms outstretched saying "Braaaaains" or chasing him around with a gun and pretending to shoot each other. I usually tell him that daddy is better at playing those games than mommy :) 

He still wants to be picked up by me a lot, which I just can't do anymore. I will however give him 'piggy' rides so he likes to climb on my back like a monkey and be carried upstairs that way or whenever his legs are tired like in the photo below on a hike with friends. 

He is really into riding his bike around the block which is good for me to be able to go on a walk. We went this morning and it was definitely a mitten kind of day already! Our nieghborhood has been booming with new construction so it's fun to go around to see what houses are being built and walk through them. 

We ventured out to the field by our house this past week to look at the trains, which is the first time we have been down there since last fall! We usually go for walks in the field quite a bit in the summer, but this past summer I barely made it out of the house on a good day let alone on a walk down to the field. Poor Sawyer, didn't get much of a summer and neither did Matt for that matter. Hopefully we will make up for it next year! Only with a new baby in tow. 

Sawyer wanted to snap a photo of me with my phone and actually did pretty good considering my head is in this one. 

 This balloon on his bike is still going strong. He has had it since before his birthday, so almost two weeks and it is barely starting to droop. It's going to be a sad day when the balloon bites the dust since it has been his trusty bike companion since he got it. 

 Yesterday we went to the Farmstead in Meridian with Matt's Aunt Rosie and Uncle Steve who moved here this summer. We haven't been to the Farmstead since my younger brother Bryson worked there before he went on his mission two years ago.  Coincidentally he comes back in a little over a week from now! I remember thinking when he left that when he got back I would only have one semester left of nursing school and Sawyer would be four years old. That sounded like such a long ways out at the time, but now we are already there! 

And just because it's super gross, here is a house by Rosie and Steve's that geared their Halloween decorations this year towards arachnophobics. Um, yes that would be me. Look at the mommy spider with all her nasty babies trailing behind her....ugh makes me feel all creeped out just looking at it. 

We have a 4 year old?!

 We celebrated Sawyer's fourth birthday this past Tuesday. My mom recently found my baby book and gave it to me and in going through it I realized that I totally remember my 4th birthday! Not any birthday before that, but I definitely remember my barbie cake and my friends coming on the day I turned 4 which meant Sawyer was going to remember this birthday! No pressure! 

The day before we went to Chik Filet with my friend Rachel and her little girl Ivory. Sawyer and Ivory share the same exact birthday and for that reason Ivory is pretty convinced they are going to get married one day. They have a lot of fun together and it's cute to watch them interact. 

Later that day my parents went with me to pick up the full mattress that we purchased the past weekend for Sawyer's room. We decided to move his twin bed into the baby's room for when guests are over and now Sawyer has a nicer and bigger bed that he can hopefully have until he is at least a teenager! Monday night he went to bed late and I had to wake him up pretty early Tuesday morning to get ready for daycare and preschool. I made him Star Wars spaceship french toast and hot cocoa for his birthday breakfast, but he was so out of it I don't think he even noticed! 

I had a doctor's appointment that morning at a new office with a new doctor. I switched doctor's because the one I was seeing only delivers at the downtown St. Lukes and I would really like to deliver at the Meridian location which is closer to where we live. Sawyer's birth, from first measly contraction to being born, was a total of 12 hours.  I think this one will be a lot faster so I'd rather be delivering at a nearby hospital! When I went for my appointment they used the doppler to get the baby's heartbeat and couldn't find it. For around 3 or 4 minutes (which felt like an eternity at the time) the doctor moved the doppler every which way on my abdomen and could find my hearbeat, but not the baby's. I was starting to get nervous and I think he may have been too so he suggested we do a really quick ultrasound. I was thinking if anything were to be wrong with the baby, what a horrible day for it to be on since it was Sawyer's birthday and we had a party with family planned for later that night! Thankfully, with the ultrasound I got to see the baby and it had a healthy heart rate of 158 so I was able to breath a sigh of relief. The ultrasound tech even printed out a photo of the baby's head for me which was really nice. Unfortunately, we didn't get to any other parts besides the head and my anatomy scan had to be rescheduled for a whole week later then it was originally since I'm with a new doctor. We won't find out whether this one is a he or a she until October 22nd which seems like forever away!  

After my appointment I picked up Sawyer's birthday treat of choice from Krispy Kreme to take to preschool. He was very specific in that he wanted, "Donuts with chocolate icing and colored sprinkles". 

When I got to his preschool all the kids were sitting in a circle and the teacher had Sawyer come up in front so she could put a birthday crown on him and then all the kids in their little voices sang him happy birthday. Talk about torture for a pregnant lady!! It was so dang cute I was trying my hardest not to cry!! I'm not usually sentimental like that so it took me by surprise how emotional I felt about my baby turning four! 

The kids were beyond excited to get to wear the Krispy Kreme hats. 

That night at seven we had his Zombie birthday party. A few weeks earlier when he had nailed down a Zombie theme I had found this super fun blog with great ideas about throwing a Zombie party minus  the blood and gore. I basically took all the ideas from that! I got all the decorations from the dollar store and spent a little over $20 for everything. Not too shabby! We decided on only inviting family instead of doing a friend birthday. I think we will do one of those next year. 

We got some dry ice at the grocery store earlier that day and it was pretty cool! Sawyer and Matt and my grandpa were having lots of fun blowing into the bowl to make the smoke go everywhere. 

We had some BRAINS cupcakes that Megan and Kevin had found at Toys R' Us and bought for Sawyer's party, some lemon-lime punch with sprite, chocolate eyeball candies and popcorn boxes filled with white chocolate covered popcorn and m & m's. 

We sang him happy birthday, he blew out his four candles (FOUR!!! I'm still in disbelief), we ate treats and then he opened up his presents. And oh yes, switched to another one of his crowns somewhere in between. 

That night he crashed into his new bed after playing with ALL of his new presents. He changed into the BSU sweats from my parents, shot his cap fun for a while that we gave him, put the money in his bank from Aunt Linda and John, traced numbers in the book from my grandparents, put 3 of the 5 Disney puzzles together from Rosie and Steve, and then stayed up super late watching Matt put together his Lego truck from his nana Carol. So much for saving some of the new things to play with the next day! At the end of the day when I was tucking him in he said "Thanks mommy for bringing donuts to my preschool and setting up a Zombie table for me". What more can you ask for?!