Finding out the sex

Although mentioned in an earlier post I figured that finding out the sex of your lil buddy is probably deserving of its own post!

"Do you want to know the sex?" this question shouldn't be a question that takes you by surprise. I am going to tell you right that at your 19-22 week appointment they are going to ask you that exact question. So talk about it. Now the thing I want to stress is that just because I say talk about it doesn't mean that you have to decide it the first time you talk about. If anything you should take some time and talk it over a couple of times.

For myself and MW we always just assumed that we would find out. We did talk about it a couple of times and finally decided that we wanted to know what our baby would be. To us the technology was there, why not use it. I am not going to lie it was amazing to find out, but also be prepared for a bit of a let down. Going from two possibilities to one a little bit of disapointment is expected. That being said don't worry about it. Just because you are a bit sad that you don't have two possibilities doesn't mean you aren't super excited to have one definite! In our case its a boy!

The thing that I cannot stress enough is communication take the time to think things over by yourself and talk to your partner. Relax you have plenty of time to figure things out!

The second ultrasound

Friday 1 April we had our second ultrasound appointment. I took the entire day to make sure that I was there and on time. However after a GPS glitch (thats right GPS not me) I ended up being about 10 minutes late. Great Great. Luckily for me JF was there to keep MW calm and laughing which was awesome!.

Once we did get there it was very much as I remember the first ultrasound except it was amazing to me how much it looked like a person! As we went through the ultrasound tech, who sucked hard core, was silent about everything we were looking at unless we asked. If you want to know what something is ASK! Sometimes the tech may be a bitch or something else could be going on, but you deserve to know everything!

The most amazing part came when the tech finally opened her mouth and asked us if we wanted to know the sex. I did want to touch a little bit on this decision. When MW and I first spoke about it the conversation pretty much went along the lines of, well I just always assumed we would find out. Some people have very strong convictions on knowing vs. not. I feel like these are the people that get most of the attention. If you don't really know what you want, thats cool. I would def( I cant spell definitely, get over it) say sit down and decide before you have the scan, as deciding then would have been a major pain in the ass.

For us we are having a boy! Woohoo! This was a big surprise for a lot of people as I feel that many thought it was a girl. I honestly didn't care as long as it was healthy. That's right some people don't care if its a boy or a girl, don't listen to people who say otherwise!

The only issue we ran into scan wise, was something called an echogenic foci. An ecogenic foci is a calcium deposit in the heart. What does this mean you ask? Not a damn thing.

According the the Tufts medical resources (Sorry its a bit technical)

There are very distinct features that would be picked up on ultrasound such as bone measurements and facial abnormalities that would be a much higher indicator of a problem such as Downs. The best available evidence suggests that an isolated echogenic intracardiac focus in the fetus of an otherwise low risk woman does not confer an increased risk of fetal aneuploidy [7,37,46-51]. Although some papers have reported that the number or location of echogenic foci affects the risk of fetal aneuploidy (higher risk with biventricular or right ventricular involvement), the general consensus is that these factors have not been proven to matter

We will go for a second scan with a specialist sometime this week, but MW and I (as well as our midwife) are not concerned at all.

We will keep you posted!!