It's a...

BOY! I'm sure most of you saw the Facebook announcement I posted. I was going to try to wait until I had time to update the blog but...I was just too excited! I'm now 19 weeks and 2 days, just about halfway! Now for some more general updates.

I've been following a forum on the babycenter.com website that consists of other April 2013 moms. Sometimes it helps a lot to read the advice and opinions of the more experienced mothers, but recently it's been making me anxious and worried. A lot of the women have started feeling their baby's movements from around 16 weeks and an occasional few have posted 2nd trimester miscarriages. Well, I haven't yet felt any baby movements (I'm 19 weeks) and became so worried that something was wrong! I stayed pretty calm with the knowledge that nothing felt WRONG and that I was still getting nauseous and sick occasionally, but I still couldn't wait for the doctor to check things out.

Finally, Tuesday came and we went to the office. I was very excited to possibly be able to find out the gender. Before the ultrasound the dr asked general questions and looked at my chart etc. Well, apparently I've gained too much weight already! She said my end weight gain should be around 10kg (22lb). Tomo made her check my chart again though and reminded her about the weight I lost from morning sickness. If using my morning sickness weight, I gained too much. Using my pre-pregnancy weight, I only gained about 2-3lbs which I think is pretty normal. So she changed her diagnosis from "too much weight" to "gaining to fast." Either way, I'll have to start watching what I eat...

Ultrasound time! I got a little worried at first when she was measuring and asking if I felt movements. When I said no, she got a concerned look on her face and said something like "we'll let's just look and see." She showed us the baby and he was moving around and perfectly fine! I assume that when she points out all the parts to us she's checking for anything wrong as well. When she got to the leg area, lo and behold, a little tiny (but definitely noticeable) "boy-part" was hanging out! 100% boy! She didn't take a picture of the "money shot" though...

Reactions: I was (am) excited because I wanted a "big brother" figure for any other children we have. Tomo was actually quite disappointed. He really wanted a little girl! He thinks that a boy as a first child is going to be difficult to handle. His mom said the same thing, but I think that's just because Tomo was such a wild child.

And now for names. We've been tossing names out here and there, well I have and Tomo just says yes or no, and Tomo decided to take a name I said and sort of make one up. I suggested Jace, Tomo added a 't' and we now have Jacet! Lol. It's not so far out there that I won't take it into consideration, and it's actually growing on me...the middle name will be Japanese but we haven't thought about that one too much yet.

The weather is finally getting colder so I can break out my more comfortable winter clothes and boots. And apparently in Japan (not sure about the U.S.) it's important to keep the pregnant belly warm. They actually make belly warmers for that so maybe ill get one. I'm in Japan, might as well do it the Japanese way :)

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates eventually!