Sugar, spice and everything nice... that's what's in my belly

Let me preface this by saying, I was 'that child.' I'm sure my parents know, but maybe they don't... around this time of year, my unability to wait and keep the surprise in presents came full swing.  Which means my ability to let others keep secrets from me drove me bananas. Yes, I was the child that would hunt through things to find where presents were hidden. If there were presents wrapped under the tree, I would be the one to try and pull off the tape and then re-wrap the present. I guess it's a good thing that my birthday is only a week before Christmas. That way, I wasn't snooping multiple times a year, but rather, just for a week or two before Christmas.  So, when it came to getting pregnant and figuring out if we wanted to know the gender of the baby, it was an obvious answer for me... YES! Thank goodness Phil was on the same page, otherwise we might have had additional problems during this 40ish week journey.  Seriously though, if there was a way I could get a sneak-peek into my belly, I would be the one to find it.
Leading up to the big day of the gender reveal, I tried the old wive's tales (multiple times), I read about different symptoms that could mean one gender or the other and I tried tuning into my body to see what it was telling me (if you played our gender guessing game, you can see that I was obviously wrong in that department).  But to my disappointment, nothing was giving me the 'most definite' answer.  So, the wait game continued.
As most of you know, my parents live in Colorado Springs, so I don't get to see them very often.  They planned on coming for Thanksgiving, so we scheduled the ultrasound for the Friday before Thanksgiving.  The plan was to have a gender reveal party with my parents and Phil's parents the day before Thanksgiving.  Fast forward a week or so and my thoughts changed to, well, my mom's my best friend and I can't keep a secret from her, so we'll tell my parents via skype on Friday night and then do the gender reveal with Phil's family.  Fast forward again a few more days and the plan became 'we'll call our parents on the way home from the appointment and tell them.'
Friday morning of the ultrasound, we drove to Sioux Falls for the ultrasound and the doctor's appointment.  We had the ultrasound at 8am and it was such an amazing experience to see every part of this little person. Seriously, we could see the bones, the eyes, the heart and stomach and so much more. And to think that baby was only 11ish ounces at that appointment! The ultrasound tech knew we wanted to know the gender and it seriously felt like she was torturing us with how long it was taking! (I now know they have to do other measurements and look at a lot of different things before focusing on the genitalia area, so while I know it's protocol, it felt like hours before she asked if we were ready)!  She focused in on the area and said, 'so what do you think?' I said, well I see a dot, so that means boy at the same time Phil said, I don't see anything so that means it's a girl.' The tech smiled and then put up the phrase 'it's a girl!' on the screen! She explained that they look for a hamburger shape or a turtle shell shape on the screen (hamburger is for a girl and turtle shell is a boy).  To Phil and I, it was just a white circle on the screen, but that is why they pay the ultrasound techs and not the parents to distinguish things :)

So, you remember how I said the plan going into the appointment was that we were going to call our parents on our way home...?  We had about 45 minutes between the end of the ultrasound and the start of our doctor's appointment, so we headed to the lobby area for some coffee/hot cocoa and breakfast.  The moment we stepped off the elevator, I looked at Phil and said, 'want to make some calls?' We both grabbed our phones and made the first calls to our moms and then continued from there. Needless to say, our day was full of much excitement, lots of phone calls and many hugs and kisses.
While I know the ultrasound isn't 100% proof, it's the closest I can get to peeking in on this present.  So unless one of you knows how to confirm that this wonderful little being is truly 100% girl or boy, I will continue to proceed with planning for a little girl to join our family.  And if we get to the delivery and the doctor announces 'it's a boy,' I will simply quit all other life activities and focus my heart and soul into finding out how I can install a window into my baby's house (i.e. my uterus) during my next pregnancy.  So, little wonderful being living inside me, if you want to have a caring and sane mommy when you enter the world (I can't guarantee the sane thing during the next 17 weeks), you will continue to make my belly full of sugar and spice and everything nice, because that's what little girls are made of!