She sucks her thumb!!!

Today we had our medical ultrasound and everything looks perfect. We saw close-up shots of the baby's little heart beating, all her organs and all 20 little fingers and toes. It was remarkable...and attached is a picture of her sucking her thumb!!!!! She's so beautiful...you can tell from some of the profile shots that she has beautiful lips!!!!

Tomorrow we have our "official" medical ultrasound, which will survey the baby's anatomy--hard to imagine that we're just about at 20 weeks (this Sunday). All of the baby's organs are fully formed, and now they just need time to mature and grow. Hopefully we'll get some more pictures to put up there for all to appreciate!

As for life, we are *slowly* adjusting to DC. It's a brave new world here, very different from our peaceful, sunny, farmer's market-filled life in California. I can't say we love it here, but we're doing our best to make it our home.

Check back tomorrow!!!!!

Here she is....

She's still a bit shy and wouldn't show us her face, but we were very excited to see her sleepy little profile. Looks comfy in there!

And as you can plainly see, such a delicate, demure beauty deserves a sobriquet more becoming than Chi-Chi. So we'll have to come up with something new. Sweet Pea, perhaps?

Here's some news...little Sweet Pea sleeps by day but parties by night! Holly can feel her moving in the wee hours, practicing her flips and tumbles and pretty much rocking the house!

Beautiful Baby GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the view from down under...it clearly takes a trained eye to differentiate these things. It is, however, official: we're having a beautiful baby girl...who we think we'll call Bella (still thinking on that one though...). Josh is going to scan the latest ultrasound pictures today and we'll add those to the blog.

EXCITING!!!!!!!

The Bits

Sunday we are going for our second ultrasound--it's a "4-D ultrasound" (but we're not exactly sure what that 4th dimension is). Everyone start sending the Chi good vibes so s/he will humor us with a look at those itty, bitty, baby bits! Sunday we'll be 18 weeks, which is hard to imagine. It's also the earliest point that they can determine the baby's sex (but there's no guarantee we'll be able to tell). That said, because our little Chi is likely an overachiever just like his/her mama, I'm thinking we've got it in the bag. Our ultrasound is outside Baltimore, so we might take our little Chi to the Orioles/Twins game afterward--just to celebrate his or her newfound gendered identity. Not to fear though, there is no chance this baby will be, as they say, "perinatally pinked." No stereotypes allowed. No pink frills or forced truck/train/tool decor here. Stay tuned for the big news!!!!!!

We are now conducting a VOTE of our loyal readers: IS IT A GIRL OR A BOY??????? Tell us!!!!