It's a....

Baby! Haha...

We had our BIG ultrasound this morning. Woke at 6 am with my alarm to take a shower in peace before the boys woke. After showering and dressing the munchkins were making some noise so I invited them out of their room. We had breakfast, got dressed and loaded into the car by 7:25 am. After a 45 minute drive we arrived in anchorage for our ultrasound with a high-risk specialist. I was sent in to see him because of my blood pressure issues which we are now calling chronic hypertension or CHTN. My regular doc order a level 2 ultrasound with the high risk specialist which is just a little more in-depth than a regular gender scan (I believe gender scans are also considered level 2...there is a difference in what we had done and what the gender scan is I'm just not sure what the difference is). I love seeing our little one and being able to see just a little bit of the personality!

Our babe was pretty shy....at first! Those sweet legs were crossed for the first 30 minutes or so! Once the stinker decided to show off...there was no mistaking! In fact, Cole joked that maybe when we come back for our next ultrasound we'd see something else and the Doc said there was no doubt in his mind...he was positive we are welcoming another little boy into our family in 5 months!

Some interesting facts:

-I have an anterior placenta...which we already knew as it's been hard to find the little guys heart beat.
-Because of my anterior placenta we were not able to see baby's face today (hence the 2nd ultrasound with the specialist...he was not able to look at babies nose or lips!)
-Baby was weighing in at 8 ounces...about 3-4 ounces bigger than he should have been.
-All of his measurements (except for his weight) were right between 17 weeks 5 days and 18 weeks 3 days
-The little guys head was right under my belly button and he is facing up at the moment.
-The boys are thrilled to have a new baby brother joining us soon!

I don't see my doctor again until February 20th..I will be 20 weeks then! I go back to Anchorage for our next ultrasound on March 4th! The hope is that baby will have moved so we can get a good look at his face and a few more measurements ...The doctor said we were a couple weeks early for a true level 2 ultrasound, that coupled with my weight makes it hard to get a few of the measurements they needed. Overall everything looked great and he was pleased, if not surprised, with babies size...women with high blood pressure typical have small babies and low fluid levels...neither of which has ever been a problem in any of my pregnancies!

And no, we don't have a name for this little one yet!