What A Day!

Yesterday was rather eventful to say the least.  From 6AM til 8PM my day was packed with more than enough excitement.  Some of it I could have done without and other moments I'd happily repeat several times over.

Madeline woke up not feeling well.  Actually, she went to bed on Sunday night not feeling well.  Her stomach had been bothering her, but I figured it was due to lack of sleep from the sleepover party she went to the night before.  Turns out I was wrong.  As soon as we arrived at the admissions department of the hospital where I was having my 20 week ultrasound done, Madeline began to vomit.  Thankfully, she made it to a trash can so she only created a contained mess.  We had no idea that was coming!  I figured that was simply going to set the tone for the overcast day that was supposed to be "Fun in the Sun Day" for Ellie's school.

Fortunately, Madeline's vomiting was limited to that single incident and we were able to do the ultrasound without any extra excitement.  The ultrasound was probably the best one I ever had in terms of clarity.  And I don't know if we're just old pros at this now, but it was the first time Bryan and I were able to fully follow the ultrasound.  I knew what we were looking at before the technician even had a chance to tell us.  Things that caused me worry with the last pregnancy were quickly not a concern for me.  This baby does not have choroid cysts, like Ellie did.  We also got to see the baby's feet and ten perfect toes.  I was pretty far along before I finally got to see Ellie's feet.  We got to watch the baby's heart pump blood with this neat feature that showed the blood in orange as it moved through the four chambers.  The spine and all of the baby's bones were shown in amazing detail.  My only regret is that I was given just three pictures from the ultrasound.  I wish I had a few more.

Finding out the gender was pretty easy.  Our first glimpse of the baby was of the bottom.  I suspected that I knew exactly what I was looking at as soon as I saw it.  Bryan also picked up on it as well.  Minutes later when the tech focused in on finding out the gender she had a perfectly clear view and our suspicions were confirmed.  Unfortunately, the tech didn't realize we would want a picture of this to show family and ten minutes later when she went back to get a picture for us, the baby wasn't being quite so cooperative.  Let's just say that someone enjoys crossing their feet at the ankles.

The night before the ultrasound Bryan wanted everyone to take a guess at the gender.  I honestly had no idea and he wasn't accepting hermaphrodite as a valid answer, so I picked girl since I had scored an adorable girly toy for $2 this past weekend at a yard sale and I really wanted to be able to use it.  Not to mention I love buying dresses.  Madeline and Bryan guessed girl, and Ellie was still holding strong to boy.  The catch with guessing was Bryan said the winners would get ice cream and the loser would have to buy it.  It was a joke, but Ellie didn't like that the guesses were stacked against her.  She insisted that she would not be buying us ice cream if she was wrong.

When we discovered the gender, it turned out that the majority was right.  We're expecting another little girl!  I can't tell you how thrilled I am that I get to add another beautiful little girl to our family.  I spent a good part of the day yesterday digging through the girly clothes that I had saved from when the girls were babies.  Surprisingly, I already have a nice amount of 0-3 month and 3-6 month clothing.  I guess it's a good thing I've always saved my favorite outfits from each size!

Since Madeline was sick yesterday,  I wasn't able to take Ellie to her Fun in the Sun Day.  I managed to find a mom from her class that was willing to look after her and bring her home so she wouldn't have to miss out on the fun.  Having a sick kid at home meant that I couldn't go out shopping for pink things.  I was more than a little bummed.  I spent all this time waiting to find out and then I was stuck in a holding pattern.  I suppose it could have been worse.  We could have gone to the ultrasound and not learned the baby's gender.

Since I had to stay at home, I worked on straightening up the place and organizing baby things while Madeline became one with the couch.  Once Ellie returned home she spent some time going through baby things with me, and that's when I added a little extra fun to my day.  In an effort to avoid tripping over Ellie in the baby's room, I slammed my big toe into a basket that held a bunch of rattles.  End result: basket 1, me 0.  I came away with a toe nail that spilt down the middle about 1/4-1/3 of an inch.  Fun!

After the toe stubbing incident I decided that I needed to direct my focus towards the VBS meeting I was holding last night.  I got everything organized and realized that my attention to girly baby clothes put me a little behind on meeting preparations.  I then rushed to create samples of the VBS crafts for the arts and crafts portion of the program.  I wanted to give the teachers an idea of what the kids would be doing in order to help them in planning their classroom activities.

Somehow I managed to pull everything together in enough time to be prepared for the meeting.  I'm very happy that the meeting went well and that I didn't run over time wise.

Since Bryan's side of the family was still unaware that we are expecting, he posted a picture from our ultrasound last night.  Amazingly, the response from his family has been underwhelming.  It appears that wishing my brother-in-law's dog a happy birthday on her Facebook page is more exciting than a new addition to the family.  Is that not truly bizarre?

Yesterday was certainly a full day!  I'm still riding on a cloud of absolute joy knowing that there's a 90% chance that we'll be welcoming another little girl to our family.