Drumroll please

It's a...


Another little boy! Come mid-late June MR will be receiving a little brother, and we will have a second son! We weren't even thirty seconds into the ultrasound when the Little Bean flashed us this:

Not shy at all, just like his big brother. The ultrasound tech said we were the perfect patients, Little Bean was very accommodating and allowed for lots of good clear shots and rolled over when needed. He was also given a very clean bill of health, all his bits and pieces (head, heart,spine, fingers and toes) are looking beautiful and just as they should. BL and I didn't even realize how much we needed to worry about this until she started checking for all the chambers in LB's heart. It was then that we remembered that we are not guaranteed a healthy baby, and we are very grateful that the ultrasound confirmed that all is well. Here are some more profile shots.



The little guy is taking after his big brother in more ways than one, he is already a whopping one pound. Seems small, but for his age it's a good couple of ounces more than average. Little Bean is currently measuring in the 85th percentile for his gestational age, which the tech actually estimated to be about four days ahead of where we thought we were at. It's always changing. MR always measured ahead too, so this is not entirely new territory for us. We are so thrilled with this news and so very excited to really get into planning for this new little boy.

Relief

Today was a day of relief on a few different levels. Of course last night was really when I let out the sigh I had been holding in all day, waiting and hoping to see what I did. There is so much going wrong in this world, in this country, at this point in time that it is enormously relieving to see such a big right take the stage. I think both Obama and McCain, in their acceptance and concession speeches respectively, were very gracious. The only point I ever truly found to fault McCain on was his choice of Palin, so watching his well worded acceptance of defeat was bittersweet. And I couldn't have asked for Obama to have said it better than he did, in promising to not be the champion of only his supporters- but to be President and defender to us all. BL pointed out to me that Bush, in his acceptance, said quite the opposite. A little bit of unity will be nice.

On a more personal level, today brought relief in the end of several days of worry. I started getting some brown spotting on Monday, following a very strenuous weekend. This NEVER happened with my pregnancy with the MR. I know what everyone tells you, that brown is nothing to worry about as long as it stays brown and no other symptoms show up. But being pregnant and having anything unexpected show up down there is scary. I immediately went into lock down mode, ceasing anything but necessary physical movement. I freaked out. I called the doctor and spoke to the advice nurse, who assured me with all the words I knew she would. What she did offer me that gave me a chance to truly feel better was an appointment for an ultrasound today. I went in this morning, BL and the mister in tow, hovering between fear and anxiety. Thank god we saw this:

Our teeny tiny little bean baby, and their itty bitty heart beating away. The technician did both an external and a transvaginal ultrasound, and it was with the internal exam that she found the little heartbeat for us. I was starting to become more worried when the tech began to explain to me that it might be too early to even see a heartbeat, the one thing I really needed to see. Fortunately that wasn't the case. We saw it, beating away at a happy 109. What she also found in there was the cause of my spotting. Apparently I suffered a small (maybe 3/4 of a cm) subchorionic hemorrhage, likely from all the extra activity over the weekend. It was a huge relief to have an actual answer, and visual proof to boot. The spotting is still unsettling, but it remains brown and it should temper down within a week or so. One other finding from the ultrasound, they adjusted my projected due date from June 20th to July 1st, as I am looking closer to six weeks as opposed to seven at this point. BL's birthday is on the 6th, and doesn't seem keen to share, so we shall see how that plays out.

And now, for the relief of sleep.