20 Week UltraSound

Well, this process is officially half-way over and yesterday was the big ultrasound. Apparently Baby Reid is not napping at 3:30pm and the technician had a little trouble getting the pictures my doctor needed. The good news for us was we got to watch the baby on the screen for over an hour. Of course, there were a few parts where we had to look away, "just in case the baby flashed us." It is a funny feeling that the radiologist knows if we will have a son or a daughter, but we don't! She did take a picture and put a note on it for us and sealed it in an envelope in case we change our mind. Tom had to take that to work because I am afraid I would peek.

After two check-ups with heart rates of 155 beats per minute, yesterday the heartrate was up to 167 beats per minute. Either the baby was really exercising in there or did not like being pushed on with the ultrasound thing-a-ma-jig. There is a story out there that if a baby's heartrate is 140+ beats per minute (BPM) it is a girl and under 140 BPM it is a boy. This has actually been a pretty popular theory in gender prediction for a long time. However, I have discovered that the heart rate of a baby fluctuates as they grow and as they move. Heart rates start out slower, and then by 8-10 weeks run in the range of 170-200 BPM. That seems fast since Baby Reid was at 155 at week 10 . . . However, as you approach mid-pregnancy the average heart rates run between 120 - 160 BPM. When the baby moves, his or her heart rate goes up, just as your heart rate does with movement. But they say none of this is related to the gender of a baby. A study was actually done to test this theory. The study actually shows that there is no correlation between gender and fetal heart rate. Although they did find a correlation between heart rate and gestational age prior to 9.2 weeks. So what does that mean? I don't get it. All I kinow is that they have cut off the ultrasound picture above so no clues are available. Darn it!