How do you feel about Pink?

We were very anxious and excited, leading up to the ultrasound appointment. The last time we saw our baby, it looked like a black and white radar image of a hurricane. It would be the first time we would see our baby's face, see it move, see how healthy it was, and it would give us one more little piece of information about our baby: boy or girl.
Neither of us slept very well the week beforehand due to all the excitement. We each had several dreams about the big day, but Jeff, who never remembers his dreams had 5 or 6 in a week, all but one, about the birth of a baby girl. Previously he was convinced we were having a boy, but his thoughts turned 180 degrees, and he went into the appointment fairly certain we were having a girl. I wasn't too sure and was just too excited to really worry about it, but guessed "boy" just to make things even. I reasoned that it's better to at least have one parent vote for boy, just to make sure not to give the kid a complex before birth if we're wrong.

We compiled a million questions to ask the Dr as we sat in the waiting room, but once the ultrasound monitor turned on, they were instantly forgotten until we were home. It was showtime.

In past appointments, our baby has proven to be extremely stubborn and uncooperative for the doctor, and today was no different. She takes after her father.
All right. You already know that we're having a girl, and we're sick of the gender neutrals like "it" ,"the baby", and the grammatically correct, but totally inaccurate "he," so we're officially using "she" from now on. Now I feel better. On with the story.

In our first view of her, she was curled up in a little ball, snuggling against the back of the uterus, with her head facing away from the ultrasound instrument. She basically maintained this posture for the entirety of the appointment even prompting the doctor to semi-audibly grumble something including the word stubborn. The doctor measured as many things as her position would allow, and concluded the following:
-In general, her development appears to be about a week ahead of the projected June 14 birthday, and she could easily arrive June 9 or earlier
-Her head is of normal size, and all visible brain configuration seems to be symmetrical
-Her heart clearly has four chambers and is beating away at a normal 150 beats per minute
-All organs appear properly formed and in their correct places
-The spine looked great, so we know that the girl has a strong backbone
-The umbilical cord is well attached and is functioning well
-Her arms and legs were visible and her femur is surprisingly long, so she may be tall. Dad almost felt like watching a women's basketball game afterward.

She definitely follows her mother's tendency to be camera-shy, but she stopped snuggling just long enough to briefly show us her little face. It's hard to distinguish facial features in an ultrasound since bone shows up better than flesh, but we saw her ears, eye sockets, nose, and mouth and have determined that she is beautiful.

One more thing about her long legs, she prefers to keep them crossed neatly at the ankle and sat with very proper posture, which we will continue to encourage after birth. This should have made it easy to determine that she was indeed a young lady, but the doctor kept maneuvering to visually verify. We were about to think we weren't going to find out her gender today, when she repositioned herself slightly and the doctor saw three vertical lines, which indicates she's a girl, just as her Daddy dreamed. We were both overjoyed, but doctor "downer" had to hedge his bet saying he's "pretty sure" she's a girl, but due to her position at the time of the ultrasound...blah, blah, blah, and he would advise us to request gift receipts from the inevitable pink shopping spree, and don't cut the tags til we cut the cord.

We saw what the doctor saw, and feel pretty confident she's a girl, and if not, we'll happily wait through a few return lines and trade out the pink for blue....but until that time, Jeff will undoubtedly continue to proudly "call scoreboard" on his prediction made true. Wow, it's a girl!

Daddy 1
Chinese Calendar 0