16 Weeks-Big News

We are officially one day away from our 16th week! I tell ya, this advanced maternal age thing does have it's perks. Because apparently my ancient body is one stiff breeze away from falling apart, they monitor me like a hawk and I get all sorts of fun tests and ultrasounds. The most recent one being this marvel they call Materniti21. It tests for chromosomal abnormalities and also screens for gender, if you are into knowing that kind of thing.

which we all know we are. And by "we", I mean Rick.

It's a procedure that is relatively new (within the last 18 months or so) where you just get blood drawn and they can figure all this stuff out without having to scrape or poke at dangerous places for actual fetal cells. Since the stats are super scary at my age, my doc recommended we get the peace of mind that comes with the test. Here's a fun fact regarding the stats: it was something like 1:16 (probably not exactly right, but it was a scary low number) women my age has a child diagnosed with down syndrome in utero. That seemed insane to me and staggeringly high. So I dug a little deeper with our genetic counselor and found out that the statistic noted was of the women who chose to get diagnostic testing. So, if you don't get a test and your child is born without down syndrome, you don't factor into that statistic, which results in the number being a little scarier than it needs to be. I think the actual number of down syndrome births to old birds like me is something like 1:225. Still lower than I would like, but not in the TEENS!

But I digress. Enough scary talk because Boom's results came back with the correct number of chromosomes and all is well there.

And, we also found out Boom is a BOY!

Yes, a boy. Who knew we could even make those in our family? I think we are all still reeling a bit from the news, but obviously we are over the moon about it. I am especially elated because it means that I was RIGHT! If you must know, the thing that tipped me off was very scientific.

Leg hair.

That's right. With Annie, I would have to shave my legs MAYBE once a week. I have now turned into a human chia pet and without proper grooming would likely end up looking like Antonio Banderas by the end of this pregnancy. So that's how I knew Boom was a boy.

A Boy.

A He. Him. His. Brother. Baby Brother. Son. Nephew. Grandson. All semi-foreign words around these parts.

I have trouble even picturing what a he will be like.

But I can't wait to find out.