On Friday, our growing family drove down to Daphne to drop off Leighton with my mom and head to our Ultrasound in Fairhope. As I have said before, we have a dear family friend (Renae) who is a ultrasound tech. She told us what Leighton was at 17 weeks. This time we were a day shy of 18 weeks. Our own doctor will do an ultrasound this Friday but we have just been dying to know what this baby is since the two lines showed up on the stick. I will reiterate that we did not care either way, we just wanted a healthy baby and full term would be nice, too.
We got to Renae's office at about 11:30 and she began our scan with warm goop on my belly and the wand gliding over my very full bladder. I had a little caffeine before we went in so that baby would hopefully be moving around a lot so we could tell if baby had boy parts or girl parts. We scanned a lot of baby's anatomy first. Since we aren't doing the quad screen this go around, it helped give us peace of mind that baby was healthy, and baby appeared to be very much so. Baby was already measuring 5 days ahead (slow down baby, mommy has to push you out, remember?). Baby is currently breech. PLEASE pray that baby will turn soon. Leighton was breech at this point, too but turned by 20 weeks. The thought of having a C-section completely terrifies me and I am not sure why. I know God is in control no matter what, but it would really help my stress level if baby would go ahead and turn!
Heart Rate (150) and Blood Flowing through all 4 Chambers
We looked at baby's head size, brain, spine, kidneys, bladder, lungs, counted 10 fingers and toes, heart and blood flowing through all 4 chambers, leg bones, knees, nose bone, and face. The only thing we couldn't get a clear picture of was the stomach and that was probably because I had been too excited to eat for about 24 hours beforehand. I know, terrible mom for not feeding my poor baby. So, I will make sure I eat a giant breakfast this Friday and specifically ask my u/s tech for a view of that little tummy just to make sure all looks good. Baby weighed approximately 9 ounces.
Then, it was time to find out boy or girl. Baby was all over the place so it was hard to get a perfect view, but the amazing Renae did. She is seriously the best u/ tech ever. She has never been wrong in all of her years doing this. We got between baby's legs and Renae said "and there is the penis, it's a boy!"
I burst out crying happy tears and shouted "I have a son!" Jeremy just stood there with the biggest smile on his face I have ever seen. We were elated. A healthy baby boy! We had both kind of suspected it was a boy because from day 1 this pregnancy has been WAY different than Leighton's. However, I had suspected maybe a girl when the heart rate was at 160 at our 16 week apt. Leighton's heart rate was always in the 160s. However, at the scan his heart rate had dropped to 150. So, it's slowing down a bit, more characteristic of a boy.
After we thanked Renae a hundred times, looked at our SON a little bit longer, and printed out some pictures, we were off to set up for the reveal party for the rest of the afternoon, smiling at each other with knowing glances all day at our little secret. Anytime we were alone we would whisper "we have a son!" It felt so surreal.
At 5:30 that evening, our families and a few close friends came over for our gender reveal party!
They got to pick out a bow or mustache for boy or girl, and I provided them with a guide as to where this pregnancy fell with all of the wives tales to help them make a semi-educated guess. The food that was provided were the things I have been craving: Pizza (basically anything tomato based), Lemonade, Boursin Cheese, Pickapepper Sauce over Cream Cheese, Sausage (pigs in a blanket), and Sour Candy/Gum. I finally felt like eating again with all of my cravings on one table- YUM!
Around 6:30 when everyone had arrived and most had eaten it was time to reveal our baby's gender! We had made a box filled with blue balloons to make the announcement. We actually made/printed ourselves everything for the party. We were pretty proud of our hard work, especially because I am not big on crafts.
When the BLUE balloons were released there were many happy screams (especially from my mother) and many congrats! We were still in shock that we were announcing that we have a son! We were all very excited and still are!
We will be naming this precious baby boy "Asher Greyson McGhee." His middle name was just a name we have both always loved. "Asher" comes from the bible, we wanted all of our children to have at least one biblical name, as children are a precious gift from God. Asher is first found in the book of Genesis. Asher was the son of Jacob and Zilpah (Jacob's wife Leah's handmaiden). When Asher was born Leah said " Happy am I, the women will call me blessed." She named him Asher and so the name Asher means "happy and blessed." I felt very much like Leah did when I was told I had a son, so it seems to be a very fitting name. He later became the leader of the Tribe of Asher and rescued his brother from jail, among many other things.
We will be excited to see our sweet Asher again on Friday! Pray that he still looks healthy, we can see his stomach, that he turns soon and that he is, of course, still a he!
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