It's a....Baby Grover?

So sorry to leave you all hanging…..we are having a GIRL! Reid Catherine will make her debut on November 12th! So we are over half way there! My doctors’ appointment on June 26th went well I had a sonogram and Hill went with us. Hill acted like some child I’d never met before. When we were in the waiting room to go back for the sonogram he was talking SO LOUD. I didn’t really feel bad because he was giving the soon to be parents a dose of what to expect. When we were called back I was sure to let the tech know about Hill’s cleft and she said she had already read up on my chart and was familiar. So yay! I had a good feeling about this tech…she was savvy. My kind of girl. She asked Hill if he wanted a brother or sister and he said “Sister! I call her Grover!” side bar: on the way to the doctor we were talking to Hill about the baby and he decided he wanted to name her Grover. So all day he called her baby Grover. He told everyone her name would be Grover….everyone.

The tech checked all the organs and measurements and said that she was measuring 2 days ahead of schedule and everything looked perfect. We heard the heartbeat and Hill liked that. She said ok, now…let’s see if we can tell what the baby is…Reid reminded me of an alligator. You know how alligators catch something then dive down deep and spin around? Well she was all spinning around so I was afraid we’d NEVER find out the gender. Finally the tech snapped a shot and said, “You see those three lines? It’s a Girl! Hill got what he asked for!” I was happy, Chip was happy. As I’d stated before I never really had any inkling of what to expect I just knew I had a 50/50 shot of it being a girl.

So when she said “GIRL” a thought crossed my mind that I hadn’t dwelled on before. I’ve got to find clothes for her. I mean friends have said they’d give me hand me downs and I even looked at cute girl clothes in that Kelly’s Kids catalog, but it never really sunk in that I really have no clothing for her. I know that sounds silly. I was telling my best friend Meredith about it and she said that we could totally go Shiloh Jolie-Pitt style (Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitts daughter) she wears her brothers hand me downs. So Reid will for sure be rocking the khaki cargo pants with tshirts. We may forego a Mohawk, but who knows??

Anyway, after Hill found out what the baby was he was like, “peace out people” and headed for the door. He got what he wanted and he was on his way out into the hall to swoon the ladies and tell them about baby Grover. Chip was able to grab him and explain to him we’d not seen something very important….does she have a cleft?

Reid, the spinning alligator, was hard to see! The tech was able to freeze a couple of frames and from what she could tell everything was symmetrical. Not to fill the tech with doubt, but Hill’s sonograms were too. I asked her to switch it over to 4D and so she did. It really looked like a big blob of clay in the picture but she was able to freeze a frame and I saw her face. It was a blur, but I saw her face. It was perfectly symmetrical and her “God says, shhh” (that’s what I call that indention between your nose and lip) was in-tact and her nose was normal as a normal blob could be. The tech said she cannot say just yet because she is so small and it’s too early to visibly see, but from what she did see she feels 100% confident that Reid Catherine does not have a cleft. Keep praying though! It is too early to make everything out clearly and also who knows if her pallet is affected? That’s the worry wart mama in me. I do have to say that I saw Reid’s eye indentions, nose and mouth. She looked like a tiny sweet alien.

Once the sonogram was over we headed upstairs to see Dr. North. It took a while to get back to the exam room and Hill was a pill. He wasn’t screaming bad he just wasn’t himself. He was laying on the floor, playing hide and go seek behind the furniture. Finding all the New Testament tiny bibles on the tables and “weeding de bye-ble.” Then he found the scale and needed to continuously weigh himself and check his height. Then he found a step stool and brought it out in the lobby to “climb.” Finally…they called us back. Once we got into the exam room it was a 6x6 space for him to find every instrument and loud thing he could bang around. Chip took him out to roam the halls.

Dr. North came in and said everything looked great! He said we’d get a better 4D sonogram at 24-27 weeks and check development. He asked when I wanted to schedule my csection for. My due date is November 20th and he said I could do it as early as the 10th of November. I said, “I know this sounds silly and not like I’m going to forget my kids birthday…but can we do it on Monday, November 12th? Hill’s birthday is 1-12 and this baby could be 11-12.” So, November 12th it will be! Dr. North roamed the hall with me so he could see Hill. Hill had been talking about the baby doctor all day and finally when he meets him he gets shy and won’t look at him. Silly Hill. So we had a great check up and the whole family was involved. I’m glad we took Hill, I know he won’t have this experience again, and maybe won’t even remember this one, but he was there and he got to share in the excitement.

He may have gotten over calling her Grover, but he still calls her Emory Hart and he thinks she lives in his belly too. He’s my sweet boy…and he calls me his sweet boy too.

*A special thanks to my friend Melanie for lighting a fire under me to blog. She is a reader of the blog and tracked me down in Facebook to friend me to tell me she was dying to know what the baby was!!! So funny and so glad to know people actually still read my jib jab.