All the Baby News.

So!  Yesterday was our Big ultrasound. The one where they check and measure and observe everything to make sure your kid is ok.

This might be the cutest and yet also the most creepy ultrasound picture I've seen.

 Our kid is OK.

Well all the doctor will say is that "there are no markers for x or y or z" because of the legal ramifications of actually giving a patient information but!  No markers for anything is a very, very good sign.

The baby is 11oz.  Which means that they are measuring exactly to my due date of June 10.  Which is more of a relief than I can even say considering that over the last couple months of sick I've lost a bunch of weight.  Pretty scary since I'm supposed to be in the second trimester growth spurt.  But! My body is doing what it's supposed to do - sacrificing itself for the kid.  I'm fine with that.  And now that I'm eating (and keeping things down) again I'm sure that things will normalize quickly.

This one, however, is just creepy.

My placenta is in the front.  Another big, BIG relief for a couple of reasons.  No sleepless nights over placenta praevia like there was with my son. And it's location explains the lack of movement.  See I've been feeling this kid move since about 10 weeks.  Insanely early, I know.  Then, recently, the movement has decreased by ALOT.  Alarming.  Crazy-making alarming.  Until you realize that the placenta has grown to the point that it's now blocking me from feeling much of the movement:

It also provides a nice place for the baby to hide from that pesky ultrasound tool.

The kid was moving around like crazy in the ultrasound.  Seriously.  Any time the tech got close to getting a measurement that she needed this kid started squirming.  It was highly entertaining.

Blurry profile shot.  Did you expect any of Matt's children NOT to be fidgety?  Because really, now.

Our daughter came with us to the ultrasound - she basically begged us to be allowed to come - which was pretty cool.  For the first five minutes. And then her 3.5 year old attention span kicked in and she and was kindof a pain.  But! it's nice that she's interested in the baby and I want to encourage that as much as possible.  She's been showing off the ultrasound pictures to everyone who will listen to her which is pretty adorable.

The classic profile shot.

So that's all the news!  I can't tell you how relieved and happy I am to be past this.  With all of this sick going around I think I've been alot more worried about this baby than I was admitting.  So to see this little person moving around and reacting and healthy!  It was pretty awesome.

Oh yeah.  No.  We did not find out.  Because it doesn't matter.  At all.  I hasn't mattered with any of our kids.  The goal here isn't to collect a matching set or to get an heir and a spare (seriously even the Brits don't care which pieces parts their heirs have anymore).  We just want to have a big, happy, healthy family.  So we thought it would be fun to do it completely differently this time and not find out at all.

Clearly from the reaction we have gotten so far this annoys alot of people.  But! I've learned by now that our parenting decisions aren't going to please everyone.  And that people are going to be dicks and not respect our opinions no matter what.  So we are doing what we always do.  What's best for our family.

I'm going to be the best surprise ever!

We do have a sealed envelope with the gender in it in case we change our mind.  Or if we want to do any of the crazy gender reveal nonsense that has become the trend since we started having kids.  But I doubt we'll open in.  This is our bonus kid.  Our go big or go home baby.  We're thrilled no matter what the gender.

Although according to our daughter the pictures are of a baby girl with dark hair.  So there's that.