It's a girl!

Well, it's official. We're having another girl. I now know that the whole "mother's intuition" thing is nothing but bologne. I had been feeling this whole time that it was a boy, I was so sure of it. Well, that's what declaring something publicly gets me. A big piece of humble pie. Don't get me wrong, I could not be happier. I love little girls, I know what to do with them, since I HAVE had some previous experience. Not to mention I still have some of Emma's old baby clothes that can now be recycled. And, as my mother-in-law put it, "every girl needs a sister". I know Emma will have tons of fun with a baby sister. I can see it now, them playing dolls & having tea & then getting into cat fights over whose Barbie gets to marry Ken. I know that Emma & I will spend hours picking out clothes for her to wear (and then spit up all over) and doing her hair (according to the ultrasound tech, this one's going to have as much hair as Emma did when she was born). And Jeff will have another "Daddy's girl". I know that although he won't admit it, he loves being the center of his daughter's world, and now he's going to have another little girl to adore him for the rest of her life. I know he has a special bond with Emma and I know he'll have that same special bond with this one.
The whole ultrasound experience was amazing. I had forgotten what it was like to see that tiny little human in there, just hanging out, waiting to join the world. Jeff was in complete awe. He was asking a lot of questions, that he thought were stupid, but this was his first ultrasound, so nothing sounded stupid. Emma was kinda into it, but it took quite awhile to get all the pictures that they were looking for, so her patience had run kinda thin by the time it ended. But, she was a real trooper & didn't cause that much of a ruckus. I got a couple of pictures, including one of her face, and it looks almost identical to the one of Emma that I got at her ultrasound. We also got one that shows the baby's spine & head very clearly. They were looking for specific body parts, to make sure they were developing properly and also to judge how big the baby might be. We saw that the baby is breathing (not air, but amniotic fluid, it's practice for when it's born) and that her bladder was full (and she wasn't the only one) and that she was also swallowing fluid into her stomach. These are ways her body practices to use these organs once she's born. We saw her heart beating, I think it was about 150bpm, and we even saw her little toes. At first, they were worried we wouldn't be able to see the sex of the baby because she had her legs crossed at the ankles. Jeff even commented (before we found out it was a girl) that that was a very lady-like position. The way she's positioned now, her head is down, with her back curving around the left side of my body, and her feet are up by the right side of my ribs. She's in a crescent shape. She also has one of her arms underneath her head, like she's resting on it. Her other hand was palm side up and pushing against the top of my belly. It was really neat to see. We were able to see her for about an hour and a half while the tech tried to locate all the things she needed.
Now comes the big decision: names. Now that the field has been narrowed to only half the baby name book, it's time to buckle down & argue. Jeff felt completely out of the loop when it came to naming Emma (both literally, being out to sea, and figuratively, since I really didn't give him a chance to voice his opinion). Now he'll have every opportunity to tell me which names he likes & which he doesn't. And I might even listen.