News from the Womb

We learned many things about our Scooter today:

• The Scooter is limber.  Baby spent the whole ultrasound with feet right up next to face, which is some kind of advanced yoga move, we think.  We have amended our prediction from "soccer scholarship" to "yoga scholarship."
• The Scooter is coordinated.  We watched in awe as Scooter did the most energetic thumb-sucking the world has ever seen.  So cool!
• The Scooter has two kidneys, a brain, a heart, a diaphragm, a stomach, an umbilical chord, two hands, two feet, and long-looking arms and legs.  Based on the amount of heartburn I'm getting, we're also thinking that Scooter has hair (the ultrasound did not reveal anything to do with this. The war between my Scandinavian genes and Sean's hairy genes wages on unseen.)
• The Scooter is terrifically uncooperative.  It turns out that impressive yoga positions are not the best for getting pictures and measurements of the spine.  We tried turning me over on one side, then the other.  Then some walking around, then some orange juice and graham crackers.  The solution ended up being the classic "dig the ultrasound wand into Mommy's belly as painfully as possible" maneuver. The radiology tech's comment: "Oh, the things we do for our children!"

While the Scooter's position was no good for spine-revealing, it was perfect for revealing other important parts of the body.  And, let's be honest, none of us were looking forward to this ultrasound and thinking, "I wonder what the baby's diaphragm will look like!"

The question of the day, truly, was this:

OR

The answer is known and shall indeed be revealed, but a couple of thoughts, first (I'm just trying to recreate for you the experience we had this morning, when the ultrasound tech did every other possible measurement before giving us a blessed glimpse between Scooter's legs.)

First, I'd like to reiterate that "Scooter" is an entirely sex/gender neutral nickname.  It was, in fact, one of my nicknames.  Video evidence exists: during the epic Easter Egg hunt of 1986 one of the clues read, in part, "To the computer/scamper, dear Scooter."  It's also been a favorite term of endearment used interchangeably between me and Sean (see Seinfeld, "shmoopy.")  You can clearly see our preference for the nickname in these photos from the Edison-Albright archives:

Jersey Shore; Wonderland Pier; Circa 2007

Park Ridge, IL; Jewel; Circa 2009

So, no matter what we saw on that ultrasound today, "Scooter" is a nickname we will continue to use proudly and often. (More family name trivia: Sean's mom was nicknamed "Skeeter" by her dad. And my grandpa was named Kermit.  So, a rich precedence for Muppet-related names on both sides.)

Second, keep in mind that the ultrasound revealed our baby's sex, but not our baby's gender. (For more on that, scroll down to part II of this post, and read the excellent comments, too.)

I'm trying to think of other ways to stall, but I'm all out.  So, if you're still curious about the sex of our baby ...

... this is a picture of a beautiful little boy, sucking his thumb like a champ:

We have close ups of the manly man parts in question, but posting that seemed like something Scooter might object to.

When I was much, much younger, I worried about whether or not I'd be a good parent to a boy child.  That's not something I've worried about in a long while, not because I've figured out the perfect boy-rearing answers, but because I'm older and I worry less in general.  Now that we've got ample physical evidence, I feel safe admitting that I was really hoping this baby was a boy and very happy to get the news today.  Sean is very happy, too.  We've got this great name picked out, you see.

The name isn't going to be a secret, either, but to keep it fun and interesting for you, we'll just leave you with a hint this time: