It's a....

BOY!

We are thrilled to announce that we are having a boy! Baby boy is perfectly healthy, measuring at 1 lb and right on track for his due date. Heart, brain, kidneys, cord insertion, and everything else they looked at are perfect. We couldn't be more excited to have our little boy first!

At the beginning, baby boy wasn't very cooperative - legs closed nice and tight. But eventually, he opened up just enough as the nurse passed by that she said "Oh I know exactly what your baby is". Then she went back, and this is what we saw:

 

Yep, that's a boy alright.

 

There's his little foot!

It was much like when I just knew I was pregnant, the way I felt about this baby being a boy. I didn't have a reason to, I just knew it was a boy. If I had been wrong I would have taken it just fine, but something told us we were having a boy and we were so so so excited about it.

When we saw him and knew he was a him, it just felt so right. Of course he's a boy, our little boy.

As for names, we've already decided, kind of. We had decided long ago that our first boy would be named Ian Timothy Cook, after 2 of the greatest men that we know, and 2 of the big reasons why Tom and I ended up together.

However, yesterday when we called my Dad to tell him the exciting news, he told us that baby's due date (November 6th) was my grandpa's birthday. Grandpa Andersen was one of the most incredible men I know of, and I have felt strongly that he knows our baby. Grandpa Andersen was born November 6, 1914, and our baby's due date is November 6, 2014 (exactly 100 years!), so if baby comes on his due date we will name him Tanner Verlan Cook after Grandpa Hans Verlan Andersen. 

We just love both options - we feel so blessed to have so many great men in our lives to name our children after and give them another great male role model to look to as an example of worthy priesthood holders.

The above picture is his profile - see his hand above his perfect little lips and his nose? His head was kind of buried in my pelvis so it was hard to get a good picture, but I could just stare at this picture all day. And I sort of do. I feel an overwhelming amount of joy and gratitude that I can't get over. Our baby boy is so healthy, so magnificent, so perfect. I love him so much already, it's hard to explain.

I still can't believe it - we're having a boy!