Surprise! (and belly picture)

So, I was reading the message boards on the "What to Expect" website from others who are also due in May 2009. It seems that pregnant women get VERY FEISTY when it comes to ultrasounds. 

Despite our frustrations with our first ultrasound, the one with no paper in the printer and lack of a fetal heartbeat attempt, we remained polite. From the sounds of it, if you are pushy - you can almost assure that you will get what you want. (And if you show enough emotion, they will often offer to retry the ultrasound the following week.)

From my vantage point, I would prefer to be nice to those people because I am new to this whole pregnancy-thing and I think I would like to have them helping me to be as comfortable as possible, instead of seeking revenge on the hormonally-raged woman who turned into a P.I.T.A. (pain in the ____) at every appointment.

ANYWAYS... onto the ultrasound surprise idea that I thought was rather cute....

There was someone who said they were taking an envelope with them to their ultrasound so that the technician could write the sex of the baby down and place it into the sealed envelope. They plan to open the envelope in front of their family at Christmas so that they can all learn the sex together. (Of course, the baby has to cooperate for this idea to work.)

From the sounds of it - if you eat a huge piece of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (or drink a large Coke) one hour before the appointment, the baby will be QUITE active and more likely to cooperate and less likely to be curled up sleeping. Although, it can be frustrating for the poor ultrasound technician to get appropriate measurements if the baby is too active. 

We'll see if the baby will cooperate at our appointment on December 11th.  At that time, we will be 15w/6d, which MAY still be too soon to tell.

Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens....

Today, baby is 13w/5d and THIS is what belly (and baby inside) looks like.

NOTE: This is NOT our actual baby... it is a photograph of what one would look like at 14 weeks.

When asked earlier this week if I had started to show yet, Mike replied "Well, it is hard to tell. It kind of looks like she eats too many cookies." In my defense, I almost NEVER eat cookies so, I'm afraid that THIS is what my baby belly looks like!