Surprise!

Yesterday morning I had some strange pains in my belly and back. A couple of hours after they started, I decided to called the doctor. They told me to come to the office in the afternoon so that they could hook me up to a contraction monitor, take a urine sample, measure my blood pressure, etc., to make sure things were all right. When I got there, however, I learned that they were also going to go ahead and do the full scans that I was scheduled to have done on Friday.

I called Ted to tell him that he was going to miss the scans (which were going to measure the babies' heads, abdomens, and femurs), but neither of us thought it was a big deal. As soon as the ultrasound tech came into the examining room, though, she asked, "So are you here to find out what you're having?" I hadn't expected to find out for a couple more weeks! I told her that I would love to know, if she could tell me, so she got to work. Within seconds, she was able to determine the sexes of all four babies!

She gave me a bunch of pictures, but it's hard to make out what exactly they're supposed to be showing, so I won't be posting them. I will, however, reveal our happy news! Without further ado (drumroll, please):

Baby A is a ... BOY!
Baby B is a ... BOY!
Baby C is a ... GIRL!
Baby D is a ... GIRL!

I asked the tech how certain she was, and she said, "I'm 98% sure. I've been in this office 20 years and have only been wrong once." So we feel pretty confident that these boys will stay boys and the girls will stay girls. The tech said that when I have my next full scan (in a month) the babies will be so much bigger that it will be much easier for the untrained eye to see who's what.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll; I had fun seeing what the trends were each day (people really thought I was full of boys!). Special props go to Staci, who exercised her sonography skills by examining the ultrasounds in last week's post and determining (correctly) that Baby C was a girl! And a big thank you to Becky, who brought me these pacifiers a few weeks ago in the hopes that we would have an even mix of niños and niñas. Aren't they adorable?

For those who like numbers, I am currently at 16 weeks gestation but am measuring at 27 weeks. Babies A, B, and D weigh about 6 ounces, and Baby C is a little smaller at 5 ounces (the tech says this is nothing to be concerned about). Oh, and the tests showed that I was not having any contractions, did not have a fever, and had normal blood pressure; the pains were probably due to the fact that I've been growing so fast (2 inches in the last 5 days!).

Now it's time to start thinking of some names ...