Is 90% Enough?

Vic and I took the peanut in for an ultrasound last Friday. The technician moved the wand-thingy all around, measuring and taking pictures of various parts of our little one. (The doctor will review the results with us in a couple of weeks, but for the moment we're happy to know that all arms, legs, hands, feet, and major organs are present and accounted for.)

After about 45 minutes of measuring and snapping pictures in near silence, the tech announced, "Looks like you're having a girl!" To which I replied, "And what kind of percentage would you give me on your certainty of that?" The answer was 90%. Is that enough to buy girl clothes or paint a room pink? (Not that a pink room is necessarily in her future.)

But the peanut was less than cooperative on a few shots they need to get. Seems she was facing my back and they couldn't see everything they needed to. So we're headed back in late next week for those shots. While they're at it, we'll ask for confirmation of the remaining 10%!

Below are two shots from the ultrasound. They're a little vague and scary-looking, but we knew many of you would want to see them anyway. The first is of the peanut's hand, and in the second, taken from the side, she is lying face-down. (Her spine curves along the top, and the pink bow is on top of her head.)

Before & After

We don't have cable. We don't have satellite TV. Our rabbit ears bring in about four channels we can see and hear well enough to watch. And for right now, this is fine with us -- we have a lot going on in our lives, not a lot of time, and friends who TiVo favorite shows and save them to watch with us.

But whenever we travel, the first thing we check at our hotel is whether they get HGTV. Despite the fact that we're renters, we love watching homeowners redecorate.

As it turns out, we may soon have the chance to become homeowners -- we're just beginning the process of loan preapproval and internet home searching. In the meantime, though, we're thankful for landlords who are okay with us doing a bit of painting.

We recently took a look at our master bedroom and realized that it looked like all the "before" pictures you've ever seen on a home improvement show. Being designers, we couldn't just pick a color and slap it on the walls. No, we came up with a few options, took photos of our room, and colored the walls in Photoshop. The decision was for a deep red paint, which turned out to be cozy and warm. There are other things we've yet to do (curtains, hanging shelves and pictures, etc.) but here, along with the curtain fabric and a close-up of the stripe detail (Vic's genius idea), are the results of our efforts in true "before and after" format.

The Kicker

Our peanut went to the doctor on Friday for it's latest checkup. My weight went down another half pound since I'm still feeling queasy, but the doctor says not to worry -- the peanut is a "perfect little parasite" (his words) and takes all the nutrition it needs before letting me have any. He also mentioned (and I appreciate the forewarning) that since the baby is definitely growing well, I might gain as much as ten pounds in the next 4-6 weeks. Wow.

We also got to listen to the heartbeat again and, while I still can't feel any movement, we could hear distinct kicks -- sort of like when you tap on the top of a live microphone. So nice to know that things are going well.

Melinda