Ultrasound pictures

I can't decipher much from them, but here are Tuesday's ultrasound pictures. She wiggled around a lot but didn't do anything awesome like give us a thumbs-up, like Brianna did. :)

We thought we'd be ready to announce the name by now but we aren't quite there. It's such a big decision -- so permanent! And so many things to consider. Will her monogram spell out something vulgar? Is there a famous murderer with this name? Does it suit a teenager, business woman, mom, grandmother as well as it suits a cute baby? Will people constantly misspell it? Aaaah!

We're probably 90 percent decided and hope to make a final decision in a few days so we (and you) can start referring to her by name. Although for now I'm happy just to be able to call her "her" instead of "it."

It's a girl!

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Making him/herself known

I've started feeling the baby move a lot more and it's feeling less like bubbles than like definite movements (I can't feel kicking yet). I have noticed I almost always feel the movements only on my left side -- can any of you more experienced moms or pregnant people tell me if that's normal?

Both times that the doctor listened to the baby's heartbeat it (the heartbeat) was on my right side, so maybe it's just that the baby's legs are on the left side and I'm feeling them kick. I guess that could be the explanation but I pictured the baby moving around a lot more than that, not staying in essentially the same position all this time.

Last night, or actually this morning, around 5 I woke up flat on my back and felt something poking out of the left side of my stomach. It was definitely solid and it felt like an elbow but I'm guessing it was a foot. It felt like you could have seen it poking out, but since the room was dark I don't know. I lay there for a while rubbing it, trying to get it to move so I'd know for sure it was the baby and not a tumor or something, but it just stayed there until I got up to use the bathroom.

When I got back in bed it was gone and I fell back asleep. Although I sometimes have very lifelike dreams and occasionally have even confused them with reality, I am about 95 percent sure this really happened. And Amanda assured me this morning that it was possible to feel that this early.

And speaking of dreams, I had a VERY vivid dream last night that the baby is a boy. For the record, I still think it's a girl -- but I know it's 50/50 and don't really put any stock in gut feelings (or dreams) about things like this.

Pink, I think

I am going to go on record as saying I'm positive we're having a girl. Obviously there's no way to know that for sure for a few more months, but whenever I think about this baby, I can only think of it as a girl. In my thoughts and prayers I always refer to her(?) as "her" or "she" -- sometimes this even slips out when I'm talking to Matt. It's been like this ever since I found out I was pregnant.

This could be because I grew up with only a sister and suspect I'd have no idea what to do with a boy. It could be because I'm hoping to get to buy cute girly stuff. It could be because I'm greedy for hand-me-downs (virtually all of our friends with a baby have had a girl).

For what it's worth, Mom and Dad agree. Mom said that when I told them, both of them almost immediately thought, She's going to have a girl. Of course all of this could mean nothing -- I certainly wouldn't be the first person to be dead wrong about the gender. Luckily, Matt (who's leaning toward a boy) and I will have plenty of time to get used to the idea between the 20-week ultrasound and the birth.