and... exhale

God is faithful. And I am grateful. My baby is perfect. Absolutely perfect. We couldn't have had a better scan. I keep wanting to say 'she'. I'm almost drawn to it. Everyone seems to be betting on a girl. And it's starting to rub off on me. Since having Jordan, I'd hoped the next one would be a boy followed by a girl a number of years later (though we certainly don't get to choose!!). But with the problems I've had these last couple of years trying to get pregnant and then staying pregnant, I figure if this one is a girl, then having one of each, I might be content with just the two of them. One of each. If it's just too hard and too painful getting pregnant again or if Dean puts the brakes on and insists on only two (though I'd love more) then at least I have my boy and I have my girl. And our little family would be complete. But since we have no control over these things, I must simply sit back and wait for my 18-22week scan to find out!

Back to the scan. So we got there and instantly, s/he appeared on the screen (my heart melted) with her/his little heart flashing away. It took my breath away. My little one, laying back, perfectly still, except for moving her/his little hand from her/his belly to her/his head now and then. Little thing just wanted to sleep. Which was perfect for all the measuring and checking out that the technician needed to do. Half way through though, we needed Bean to move so she moved the wand over my belly a little harder and Bean rolled over with her/his back to us as if to go back to sleep. Too precious. In the end, the technician had to jiggle the wand to wake up my little belly babe. It was so funny, Bean jumped to life waving her/his limbs about as though startled and wondering what on earth was going on!! Though the image of Bean sleeping peacefully was wonderful, it was good to see her/him moving around like that.

So I am allowing myself to completely exhale now and finally take another breath. I can breathe freely. For the first time in 8 weeks since I saw those two precious pink lines, I am breathing. Praise God. I've also been feeling a bit of movement. Just very small, so small I've been questioning if it's actually movement or just gurgling. But it still feels good. Now I'm going to go and shop up a storm, a storm of yellow and beige and green and grey for the next six weeks until I find out what we're having!