We're having a...

Even the sun knew it was a big day for us and decided to make its presence known after three days of hiding. I fought off a headache the entire twenty-five minute trip to Dortmund and kept praying that God would help me to dismiss my expectations of a "perfect" day. Thankfully food, water and fresh air seemed to eventually help my head return to a normal state of being and before we knew it we were tracking down our parking spot to head to the "Praxis fur Pranatalmedizin" at the hospital.

We arrived half an hour early for our appointment as John was just too anxious to walk around the city center any longer. By the time we waited for our turn to check in it was already 12:30, the time of our appointment, but we had to wait another entire HOUR to see the doctor. Let me tell you, those sixty minutes seemed like sixty days. John was signing some song about, "Please hurry up, I want to see my son or daughter." Don't ask me what tune it was to, he was making up the whole thing as he went along. I was actually a little relieved when he fell asleep in the waiting room chair, hoping it would make the time go by faster for him so I didn't have to watch him bite his nails and fidget any longer.

FINALLY the nurse came into the waiting room and said, "Frau Turek." We practically jumped out of our seats and ran to the ultrasound room. Patient we were not, my heart was racing much faster than it should have been.

John sat next to me and held my hand as we saw images of our little boy or girl pop up on the plasma screen in front of us. Immediately my eyes went down to "that region" to see if I saw anything. The suspense was killing me.

Then the kind, older woman doctor asked if we knew what we were having. I said, "No." Then as she rephrased her question a bit, I realized she was trying to ask me if we WANTED to know what we were having.

"Yes, we want to know what we are having," I nodded.

She zoomed in and said, "Do you see that?" To be honest, the angle was a little awkward and I couldn't tell if I was looking at boy or girl parts. At that point, I'm pretty sure I was probably holding my breath... waiting, wanting to know if our little one was our son or our daughter.

"It looks like you are having a BOY, I'm 96% sure."

I turned to John with a huge smile on my face. Everything seemed so surreal. I was looking at our little son on the screen and then looking to his dad, knowing that if our boy grows to be half the man his father is I will be so incredibly blessed. John had a huge smile on his face as his eyes met mine; we squeezed hands and then looked back up to the screen... to see our SON.

The rest of the ultrasound went very well. Baby Turek is on track in the weight department, and above average in height. His heart beat was very strong, and the doctor said the nutrients from my placenta looked great, "couldn't look better."

We even got to see our baby boy in 4D! Little Turek is kind of a little stinker though, he kept moving his arms in front of his face. Or, he would fold his legs up and over almost as if he were ready to go into a backward sumersault. This made it difficult to get a image to convert to 4D to see his face. But, after multiple (probably at least seven!) attempts the doctor's patience resulted in this precious image:



He is just so cute I don't know what to do with myself. I know, I am completely biased since I am his mom and he is my son. Technology is simply amazing though. Seeing his little features so clearly just makes me want to hold him and kiss those sweet little cheeks of his.

We also got to see him laughing (according to the doctor at least!) and smiling. I hope that means he will be a happy baby. ;) He also yawned for us allowing us to see that his palate had developed well. His heart looked great and blood was pumping in and out just as it should. The spine looked normal. And his feet looked, "very good." That had to make me laugh, but I think she just meant good sized. At the end John asked, "So you're 96% sure it's a boy?"

The doctor's response, "Well, I would say 100%, but I never want to say 100%"

Thank you for sharing in our joy. John is already talking about taking our son to basketball practice with him, and I am wondering how I am going to resist watching him sleep if he looks anything at all like his father. :)