Well, today we had the big sonogram.  The specialist, who never introduced herself to us, measured everything from the placenta (which looked as big as the baby) to the size of the baby's melon (which already is looking full of intelligence).  But most importantly, we found out the sex of the baby.  Here's a diagnostic picture. See if you can figure it out.  I sure couldn't.  The answer is down here.

The baby is quite big, and based on that, the due date was changed to Novemer 5th, over a week earlier than last estimated.  Maybe if I keep eating like I have been, I can get the due date pushed all the way into October!

To no one's surprise the baby was quite active during the scan.  You can actually see the baby throwing punches at my innards.  And it didn't help that I kept giggling.  I've been having uncontrollable giggling fits lately, but I suppose that's better than crying uncontrollably.  Despite the fact that Dr. Cook does not allow us to videotape the scans, for liability reasons, we brought a tape anyway, hoping the specialist would let us.  Fortunately, she did and we got seven minutes of some Beautiful Baby Footage.  Maybe eventually, we'll find a way to get that in some form we can put here on the web. 

The specialist told us it was a beautiful baby and didn't say anything was not as it should be.   Some other interesting things we saw were the spine, all fully formed and enclosed correctly.  The heart was beating, and we could clearly see all 4 chambers of the heart.  The hands were quite busy, and the baby kept opening and closing the fists, and touching everything.  We got to see the umbilical cord, which wasn't that obvious.  In the video we have a great shot of both feet.  You can see all ten toes.  The brain was really neato, and you could see the ventricles and skull bones.  In the profile picture, you can see that the baby clearly has Joe's nose, thankfully.  After all the measurements were taken, the specialist was just looking around and we got a really neat picture of the baby with his hands together in front, as if in prayer.  But really neato was a frontal shot of the face, which showed the mouth moving as if the baby were talking.

So, in case you still couldn't figure it out, the picture above shows the baby's penis, which means it's a boy, obviously.  I certainly wouldn't have been able to say one way or the other.  I would have guessed that little button was simply an odd section of the umbilical cord or leg.  But Joe thinks it's obvious, as did the specialist.  And when we re-watched the video, you can see it numerous time.  Of course, this means that almost everyone is wrong.  The general concensus was that it was going to be a girl.  I think it's a culture thing, because while the Chinese scientists I work with always said it was going to be a girls, the Hispanic women were convinced it's a boy.  Of course, Jana and Geoff's mom both thaught it was going to be a boy, as well.  I guessed it was a boy simply because he is already causing so much trouble and is so rambunctious. 

I'll admit I'm a tad disappointed that it's not a girl.  Most of my friends have young girls and they look like so much fun.  And it would be cute to see Joe (and my father, for that matter) wrapped around a little princess's finger.  But on the other hand, a boy is so rough-and-tumble and adventurous, how could that not be exciting? And a boy is what I wanted originally, so that our next child, hopefully a girl, would have a big brother.  And like Joe said, it would be nice to have a girl, but what a relief to not to have to worry about one.  And he still has Squirtle as his princess.

Of course, if this had turned out to be a girl, I would have been just as disappointed not to have a boy.  And then Joe couldn't have spent the time he did figuring out which professional sport our son will play (baseball, since it's less physically taxing and has the longest career), and what his major will be in college (chemical engineering, maybe).

So I'll be the minority in another family.  Although with all his cousins being girls, the baby (Thomas Henry or Henry Thomas) will probably feel more of a loner than I will.  At least he won't have to wear anyone's hand-me-downs.

All in all, it was quite exciting to see the baby again, and to get a definite on the sex.  I'm terribly glad we got a video, and anyone who sees us in the next few months can look forward to repeated play-by-plays of it over and over again.