World, meet beautiful Baby M!

What an incredible day! I cannot even describe the feeling Patrick and I had watching baby M's little toes and feet and hands come up on the ultrasound screen. I know everybody says this: but the child is beautiful. You can make out a head, nose, lips, etc. in the above photo. In the one below, check out the feet and toes. The nurse said the baby has long toes. (I hope he or she doesn't have my dad's feet!)



In the photo below, you can apparently make out the sex of the baby. We know what's on the horizon, but Patrick swore me to secrecy. He doesn't make a lot of requests with stuff like this, so I'm going along. Anyway, check out where the arrow is pointing to see whether you can tell if there is a lack or a prominence of certain genitalia. I got it wrong when I looked, but I can't tell you why. Your guesses are welcome. (That little heart-shaped thing at the right is the baby's bottom.)



And the last one shows the baby's face as clear as day, as far as I'm concerned. This was a special 3D look to detect a possible problem, and thankfully, no problems surfaced. They checked everything right down to the number of ventricles on the baby's amzing little heart. So far so good, and we were overjoyed to get such a close look at Baby M's perfect little nose, lips, eyelids, etc. That thing that looks like an ear, by the way, is likely the cord, the nurse said. (So Baby M might escape having Patrick's big ears. Ha ha!)

Since the baby's ears are developing well around 20 weeks, I've secured a pair of giant headphones that I wear around my belly. I got a splitter over the weekend so we can both listen to the iPod at the same time when I go for a walk. I'm pretty determined that this baby will come out of the womb singin' Motown.

I asked my mom and dad what song baby M would bust out after the initial gasps for air, and mom came up with "The Onion Song" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I'm going to take that one because I would love Baby M to have that song as his or her theme song.

Here are some lyrics, baby. Start practicing:

The world is just a great big onion
and pain and fear are the spices that make you cry.
Oh, and the only way to get rid of this great big onion
Is to plant love seeds until it dies, uh huh!