think pink.

it's a girl. a perfect, healthy, growing, beautiful, more-than-i-could-ever-hope-for girl.

she's 11 onces, 8.4 inches. we saw all four chambers of her heart, her spine, her femur, both her arms and legs and hands and feet, her kidneys, her umbilical cord and her perfect face. she has a forehead, eyes, a nose, lips and a chin and neck. i guess babies are born with all those perfect things every day, but it's absolutely amazing to me that she's so tiny with all those things in place and working already and INSIDE ME. they kept my due date the same -- apparently her growth progress is right in the 50th percentile. she's in a breech position and her butt is down on top of my bladder (an explanation for endless peeing..), and her legs are folded up next to her head, practically. she was waving her arms and her legs and kicking me all over. i already want to hold her. i'm longing to hold her.

for the longest time the sonogram lady couldn't see whether it was a boy or a girl because her butt was pushed up against my bladder. seriously, for 15 minutes she couldn't tell, and i was really thinking, "i WILL stay here until you tell me what it is..." and then she started drawing this sort of scribbly line on the side of the baby's head on the profile picture she captured to give us. she kept talking to us, and then three minutes later or something she says, "do you know what that is?" talking about the drawing. i said, "....no." she said, "it's a bow. you're having a beautiful baby girl." and then the sobbing started. apparently landon knew it was a bow as soon as she drew it. he was just sitting on the other side of me holding my hand the whole time, waiting for me to realize or the sonogram lady to say something. this crying was ridiculous, i'm telling you. i was trying not to cry, because my belly bounces, and she's trying to see little, tiny things on the baby. well, instead it would just escape every now and then in these awkward, desperate sob-sounding things -- to the point where she asked me (three times) if i needed to get up or stop or get a drink of water. it really wasn't that bad, but i just had so much built up over the whole thing that i needed a good solid cry for about five minutes straight. instead, it was 15 more minutes of ridiculous-souding gasps. slightly embarassing, but i imagine things get a lot more embarassing in this process before it's over.

landon was so sweet. he didn't laugh at me (he should've). he just stood up and brushed my hair from my face and bent down to kiss me every so often and wipe my tears away.

it was really incredible.

then we went to old navy and then target to try to find a baby girl dress. we picked this perfect little light brown (Carter's) corduroy dress with tiny pink flowers all over it from target. underneath is a long-sleeved pink onesie with flowers on the ends of the sleeves and little tiny velvet bows underneath the flowers. i'm going to put her in light pink tights with it, and wrap her up so tight so she's not cold in february.

it was...amazing.

i have a daughter.

**coming soon: the sonogram picture, photos of our first baby girl shopping trip and a special "girl" portrait. now if i could only find my camera cord...**