It's a......

So something you should know about EmmaLee - she's awful about waiting for surprises. A couple of years ago I told her I got her birthday present about 3 weeks before early and from then on the questions never stopped. It's a good thing I don't give in easily. Anyway, the point is that I was shocked when she said she didn't want to find out what we were having. Luckily I was able to convince her that we needed to. So for those who don't know, we're having a boy (the above ultrasound shows two thighs, a bum, and indicates his male-ness with an arrow)!!! EmmaLee says that she thinks every girl needs to have an older brother so we were glad to find out we're having a boy first. Unfortunately, the main purpose of this ultrasound is not to determine gender....

During this ultrasound they check all the major organs to make sure everything is okay. They looked at the baby's heart, brain, kidneys, spinal cord etc. These all looked normal but they noticed that the baby has a cleft lip. This is a 3D ultrasound showing the baby's face. You can see his head between the uterus on either side towards the top. You can see his eyes, nose and mouth. The cleft is on his left (your right). You can see the skull is not fully formed yet, but that is normal. The doctor said that she is pretty sure there is an opening on the palate as well. From our other ultrasound pictures it looks like the cleft in the palate is minor (to our untrained eyes), but we have another ultrasound on August 8th to take a better look. After that ultrasound we will start meeting with specialists. Despite all this, there is good news: the world leader in cleft lip/palate surgery is at Children's Hospital here in Boston. Also, clefts can be caused by many other disorders that can have negative effects but we had an amniocentesis performed to test for these other disorders and they were all negative. Our Father in Heaven really had a reason for us to be out here and we are definitely starting to understand that now. I'm sure we will have a handsome, strapping young lad in a few years down the road.

Here are a couple of other ultrasound shots that may help you visualize the cleft in the other ultrasound.

Here he is covering it with his hand like he is embarassed. He's cute already! The next one is a side view of the same thing.