baby girl on the way!

For those of you who just heard we are pregnant......please forgive us! We are 20 weeks now, due April 28, 2011. After a crazy start, things have gone fine. Essentially, soon after our positive home pregnancy test, I had some pain in my right lower abdomen, which led to a number of ultrasounds and early doctor visits. These early ultrasounds showed a yolk sac, and a good sized cyst on my right ovary which was believed to be the cause of the pain. At 7 weeks, a heartbeat was seen, and better yet, a baby, and Dr. Gass assured us that things were ok. He said that the cyst was large enough to cause discomfort, but nothing to be concerned about.

We were relieved, but still hesitant to make any big announcement because it had been kind of a scary few weeks. As our next ultrasound got closer, it seemed good to wait to see what kind of baby we were having.

I was super anxious to find out this baby's gender. I love our two boys with all my heart. But, I was really hopeful for a baby girl, for so many reasons. I almost felt silly praying and essentially begging God for a girl, but know I'm not the only who has done this. Still, I went into the ultrasound fully prepared for another boy. Because some babies do not cooperate during ultrasounds (and we've known of several recently), I went prepared sipping a Coke on the way to my appointment. The tech said that our baby was super active. :)

When she (the tech) started showing us the baby, she seemed worried that we didn't really want to know the sex. But we assured her we wanted to know and she quickly tried to get a good angle. I didn't see any obvious signs of boyhood, and she had a pretty good picture showing that we are indeed carrying a baby girl.With the crazy lives we lead, it was amazing to know that God heard my prayer and chose to bless us in this way. There are many things in life that are just hard to deal with, and some days it is overwhelming. Often we wonder if the Lord really sees all that we are going through. All of this to say, it was a wonderful and obvious gift to be having a baby girl, and we are so grateful. The boys don't really get what is going on yet, but they are sure to enjoy having a little sister.

Oddly, they were not able to get a good view of the baby's profile, so I will have another ultrasound at my next appointment while taking the blood glucose test.