Well. This is it. Today Matt and I are both taking half-days, and after a quick lunch at home, we'll drive down to the hospital in Hampton (incidentally, the same hospital where I was born) to have our second ultrasound.

Unless I develop complications - which I'd really rather not, thankyouverymuch - we won't actually see the baby again until it's born.

The last ultrasound, twelve weeks ago, was exciting. But neat as it was to see the heart beating and watch the little arms and legs wiggle, it looked like an alien had taken up residence in my stomach.

By now, Particle is mostly shaped like a human being. We should be able to make out an actual face, and individual fingers and (maybe) toes.

And if it isn't feeling shy, we'll have a good shot at picking out its gender. (Via the highly-advanced medical technique of looking for a willie. This isn't 100% accurate. The baby's got to cooperate by showing itself off, and even if we don't see anything - which would indicate a girl - it could still turn out to be a problem of angle. So we won't know for certain until the birth. But there's a pretty solid percentage.)

Anyone who doesn't want to know the baby's sex - sorry, but I'm not going to try to remember who does and doesn't want to know, and although I could just keep baby references to a separate section for you to skip, I probably won't. You're probably best off just not reading my journal or blog for the next four months. If you want, you can drop me a line and request to be notified when the baby comes.

The rest of you can check the blog later tonight, or here tomorrow, for the news and scans.

--Liz