It's a . . .

GIRL!

It was really kind of funny, because Mr. X and I both have thought the baby was a girl all along. Of course, we had a 50/50 chance of being right, but our reaction was more of a "oh, yeah, that's what we thought" than a big surprise. Still very cool, though. The ultrasound was funny, because the ultrasound doctor (my regular doctor doesn't have an ultrasound, so I have to go to another doctor) was held up (had to assist on a delivery in which the baby came out and the IUD didn't--yikes!). So, the PA and a med student came in and said they wanted to play with the machine before the doctor came. It was a riot. So, we had lots of time on the ultrasound, and Mr. X (who is really good at visual stuff) was able to identify the baby's sex before they were. Then, the doctor came and confirmed that everything was OK. It was amazing to see the baby's heart (we could even see the valves working) and her little hands opening and closing into fists. She was moving all over the place, too! Unfortunately, the pictures we ended up with are mostly of the "alien baby" variety. I haven't scanned them in yet, but I need to in order to post them here and send them to family.

Last week was insane between a ludicrous deadline I had for work (deadline was online submission by Friday, and I finished on Friday night . . . at midnight) and my parents coming to visit (which was great fun). My parents helped us out a ton with things around the house. My dad put in lots of baseboard and helped Mr. X install some new cabinets in the kitchen, and my mom and I ran errands all over town to do returns and donations from all the junk we have piled up in the babies' room.

I had kind of a scary day today. I was on my way to a doctor's appointment, and I had probably the worst car accident I've ever had. I was driving on a four-lane highway with a full lane in the middle for turns. I was in the left lane and the man in front of me in the right lane decided to make a (not so legal) U-turn. He pulled right across my lane and then just stopped. I honked my horn, and he moved a little bit, but then stopped again with his car across my lane. I tried to slow down and go around him, but by that point, I couldn't. I just caught the side of his car near his rear bumper with the driver's side corner of my front bumper. My airbags deployed, tearing off the passenger side visor and shattering the windshield. It scared me to death! I called 911, and he pulled into the middle turn lane. I waited till I could judge the traffic and then pulled over onto the shoulder. Since I wasn't in pain, the fire fighters who arrived just told me to go ahead to my doctor's appointment. By the time I got to the doctor's office, I had been feeling the baby move, and I still wasn't having any pain, but I still couldn't relax until the doctor checked her heartbeat. It was fine, and he said that I should just go home, take it easy, and call him if I had any bleeding, pain, or contractions. Evidently the main concern with an accident is placental abruption (the placental separates from the uterus, and the baby isn't getting enough oxygen or anything else, for that matter), and if that happens at 22 weeks, there's not much they can do. He described the uterine muscles hardening during a contraction, and I did panic a while later when I felt a little twinge and the muscles seemed hard, but only on the right side, where I'd been feeling the baby move. So, I called, and he said that it's common at this point for the baby to hang out on one side, with the result that the uterus feels squishy on the side with the fluid and harder on the baby's side. It looks like everything is OK, thank God!

The man in the other car seems to think this was my fault! From what I've been able to figure out, it sounds like he thought he was in the middle turn lane, not a traffic lane. But, given that he pulled his car into the middle turn lane after the accident, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for him to stick to his story. As we were exchanging information, he said, "Now, remember, this was your fault!" Ha! We have to go down and make police reports because the police in that town don't come out for accidents. Should be interesting. He told my insurance company his version of the story, so it sounds like we may have a battle between insurance companies on our hands! Not fun. My car is totaled. And Mr. X's car is a stick, which I can barely drive (I practiced tonight, but I get very nervous, and I have a really hard time starting again after I stop). We reworked our finances to cover our adoption expenses, and a new car is really not in the budget right now. We'll probably get between $3000 and $4000 for my car. It's a bummer, because the car was 11 years old and nothing fancy, but it was very reliable and had several good years left. At this point, I'm just very grateful that we seem to have come through without injury. At this point, I think I'm going to take a bath and relax a bit and then get some sleep.