dec 13 ultrasound pics

here she is in all her glory! in some of them, you can see the profile of her nose, lips and chin. enjoy!

it's a......

well, if you couldn't tell yet by the new page colors, it's a girl! the ultrasound was amazing...our little girl just could not sit still! she must've been excited to be on camera :) she was moving around so much, in fact, that the ultrasound tech had a hard time getting all the measurements she needed for the doctor.

we weren't able to video tape the actual ultrasound, but they put it on a vhs for us. we then watched it on my mom's tv and video'd that. so hopefully, we'll be able to convert it and shrink it and post up some of the more interesting parts :) she likes to kick, that's for sure!

after the ultrasound, we had our doctor's appointment. he said everything looks perfect and gave me a referral for physical therapy to try and help with the sciatica. i was grateful for that.

then we had lunch in the hospital food court and killed a little time calling family before our tour of the birthing center. they only have three rooms there, so it's all very private and intimate. each room has a queen sized bed and a large whirlpool tub. the best part may be that unlike the regular hospital birthing area, they let you eat and drink whatever you want while you labor. i am so excited about that because i can get very unhappy when people won't let me eat or drink when i want to.

so it's great knowing what 'kind' of baby we're having...and we have been set on our girl's name for about a year now. unfortunately, that will remain a secret until she's born! there has to be some element of surprise, right???

we'll be scanning some ultrasound pictures and putting them up probably this weekend. and i still have my belly picture from two weeks ago to post, but there will be a new one saturday, too, so you might get a 2-fer. it's just crazy seeing little feet and toes and kicking and moving around. we think she looks pretty perfect...but again, we are a little biased. :)

movin' and shakin'!

ok, so i've had several instances in the last five weeks or so where i thought MAYBE i felt the baby move. but who am i to know...i don't know from experience, obviously, and the best i can do is approximate what it feels like from the descriptions of friends and family who know. most the time, i think i'm just feeling gas. :)

anyway, last night i know for sure i felt the baby move! several times! it's definitely most pronounced and recognizable when i'm lying on my back...and once i felt it, there was no mistaking. that was our baby. moving!

it's pretty amazing...i woke up this morning around 3.30 and was awake for about an hour...and i just laid on my back, waiting for the next kick or jab...i felt about 5 or 6 of them over about 10 minutes...and i can't remember ever feeling more joyful. it really starts to feel real now...there is a human being growing inside me, and it's now not just my growing belly that tells me that. there is LIFE in there.

i was laying there this morning, thinking about how it always comforted me to think that God knew me, knew everything about me, when i was still in my mother's womb...and now, here i am, the mother...and God knows everything about this little life growing inside me...and i don't even know yet if it's a boy or girl, let alone what color eyes or hair...or if he/she will like sports or art...or what his/her favorite color will be...i have all those things ahead of me, to learn...what a blessing. and what an amazing blessing to know that as little as i know about our child, God knows absolutely everything...and he holds the life of this child in his hands. in this moment, as helpless as i am, being stuck on the outside with no view into the womb and no way to communicate with the baby...it's actually really easy to trust that God is taking care of it all...in fact, i don't recall a time in my life when it has been easier to trust God with anything, let alone something so important. so without even being able to hear my voice or know my scent or look into my eyes, this little baby is teaching me how to trust and love God more. i'd say we have a pretty amazing little baby in there...but maybe i'm just biased.

thanksgiving.

i know it was a couple weeks ago, but i wanted to post a photo of derek and i from turkey day. we had a great time at my mom's this year with more family than we're accustomed to. it was excellent.

a little less rosy. but only a little.

so i've been enjoying this 2nd trimester sooooo much. i feel human, i love food, i'm still sleeping well...all is pretty rosy.

well, i was im-ing with a friend the other day and she was asking me how i was feeling. "GREAT!" was my enthusiastic response. then i proceeded to tell her that i've been having this awful shooting pain/numbness in the back of my left leg...it's not really a problem, i told her, except when i stand, sit, cross my legs, bend over, walk, and shift gears. she proceeded to question my crazy happy response about how i'm feeling. :)

well, i'm pretty sure (after a little research) that the pain/numbness thing is sciatica. yay! well, at least it has a name. and my chiropractor is able to improve things a bit...it doesn't go away, but it gets better.

now, for the last couple days, it's the heartburn. ick! doesn't seem to matter what i eat or how i eat it, it burns, baby. it's not keeping me up at night or anything. but i'm not a big fan of the heartburn. my mom was over last night and she told me all about my great grandma and how she would put a little baking soda in some water and drink it...apparently the amazing cure for heartburn. yum. well, as it turns out, i was reading some bulletin boards about heartburn during pregnancy and a couple of the girls were touting the same solution. they swear by it. well, i'm trying a few other things first...chewing gum, peppermint candy, ice cream...all very tasty solutions that other girls swear by. so far, chewing gum seems to be helping...and derek's picking up some mini candy canes on the way home.

also, the prego belly is REALLY beginning to look prego. some guy in the kitchen at work made a comment about me being pregnant and i don't even know the guy! i think i'm getting past the part where i just look a little fat. ;)

...only two weeks till we find out if we've got "a stem on the apple," as my friend dwayne would say!

baby's hungry again.

so i've hit that point in pregnancy (well, MY pregnancy at least) where i feel pretty darn normal. it took the doppler and the baby's heartbeat at the last ultrasound to bring me back to reality. i just find it hard to believe that there's an actual child growing inside me right now. i just feel too normal. i mean, i know my belly is growing, and i'm hungry like every two hours (but can't eat hardly anything because my stomach is so squished), and i pee like four times more a day than i did before...i know all that, but i still just can't believe there's a baby in there.

last week we started talking about names again. we've had a girl name picked out for about a year now, so we're set with that one...but we've been stumped as far as boy names go. and we figured that even if the next ultrasound shows a girl, we should probably be prepared with a boy name anyway...just in case. so we now have a list of 6-8 possibilities. and i feel better because i was really nervous about the ultrasound showing a boy because the task of finding a boy name just felt really daunting. so now it's manageable.

we decorated for christmas yesterday and i must say, it is festive in here. i love this time of year...i love the snow and i can't wait to see it coming down in blankets. we've been listening to christmas music and i am just soaking in this last christmas of ours, you know, alone. just as it is hard for me to remember what life was like without derek, i know it will be impossible for me to remember life without our kids. it'll be a good thing, but i want to enjoy this christmas with my husband.

speaking of my husband, he only has a few weeks left in this quarter, and then it's back to evenflo for co-op. it will, once again, be a welcome break from the academics -- for both of us. it means i'll see him more, we'll do more stuff together and life will just go by at a slightly slower pace. then one more quarter of class and graduation. sweet, sweet graduation. oh, but the baby comes before that. and that will be sweet, too.

well, that's it for tonight. we're at 17 weeks today and the next three weeks of calling the baby 'it' can't pass quickly enough. can't wait for that ultrasound. :D

as the belly grows.

it's getting bigger, i swear. i still haven't gained back all the weight i lost in the first trimester, but i'm only like 1.2 pounds under now, according to the scale at the doctor's office. my belly looks more pregnant to me than anyone else, i think, simply because i get the top-down view and everyone else just gets front and side views. trust me, the view from the top is way better.

16 weeks!

well, we had another visit with the doctor today...actually, we saw a new doctor today. there are two in the practice and we wanted to meet both so that it wasn't like having a stranger delivering our baby if our main dr wasn't on call when we went to the hospital. :)

anyway, we liked him. very calm and laid back. they both are. personable, and very patient through all my questions. :)

we got to hear the heartbeat again...it was in the 140s and sounded strong! it always makes it feel so much more real when we hear the little heartbeat ticking away. the doctor said everything checked out well, all looks good and normal.

we're really looking forward to thanksgiving this week...it will be great to be with family and have some great food.

speaking of food, i've been eating more of it lately. i'm hungry about every 2 hours, but there isn't much room in my stomach, so i don't eat much at a time. i guess that's probably pretty normal.

in other news, this website called diaperdecisions.com has a bi-annual event called 'the great diaper hunt'. they have all these sponsors that hide a little icon on their website and you have to hunt and find them. once you find a certain number of them, you get entered into different levels of a drawing for free cloth diapers and related products. there are several drawings, and i have 12 more icons to find, total. i've been a hunting fiend. it's over at the end of the month, but i hope to have found all the icons well before then. i also hope to win something, but even if i don't, i've now found a handful of great sites to visit when i need supplies and information.

oh, so here's what's going on with the baby right now, according to babycenter.com:
"At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado. In the next three weeks, she'll go through a tremendous growth spurt, though, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. Her lower limbs are much more developed now. Her head is more erect than it has been, and her eyes have moved toward the front of her head. Your baby's ears are close to their final position, too. Some of her more advanced body systems are working, including her circulatory system and urinary tract. Her heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, circulating her total blood volume through her body many times. (By the end of your pregnancy, this will increase to about 190 quarts.) The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn't recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she's even started growing toenails."

ouch.

well, i think today was my first real experience with round ligament pain and muscle separation pain. it started this morning when i rolled over to derek's side of the bed to get a tissue. i never made it to the tissue box. holy cow, it felt like someone had knifed me in the belly.

then i had similar (but less severe) pains most of the day today. nothing too serious, just on and off.

i can definitely feel things stretching when i extend my body, like when lying on my back or doing the morning stretch routine. the spaces in my abdomen are filling up fast, and my whole belly is starting to extend to accommodate. the real clue that i'm growing a baby in me is that when i lie on my back, my belly is still rounded. even my chubby non-pregnant belly never rounded over when i was on my back.

so i'm still about 3-4 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. every few days i weigh myself on the scale and give derek a frown when i haven't gained anything yet. he pouts with me and assures me that i'll be able to gain that weight! what a bizarre conversation!

well, derek needs his computer back, so here ends this blog post.

early ultrasounds...

we finally got these scanned, so enjoy...

the first was at 6 weeks. the baby was .237 cm in length and as you can see, very blob-like. not much to look at, and the ultrasound tech had to type 'baby' next to it so we knew what it was. :)



the second was at 8 weeks. the baby was 1.47 cm in length...almost 10x bigger than just two weeks earlier. amazing. at this ultrasound, we saw the heartbeat, saw the blood flowing between the baby and the placenta. it was pretty amazing...it had little arms and legs and everything.





our next ultrasound is on december 13 -- our 4th anniversary...and we are anxiously looking forward to seeing the baby move...and finding out if we are having a boy or a girl!

14 weeks! 2nd trimester!

well, i'm a few days late posting...derek tried to post on saturday, but he couldn't figure out our password to our blogger account, so... :)

we're officially in the 2nd trimester! a third of the way there!! in six weeks, we'll be halfway there!

so this week, according to babycenter.com:

"Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb. Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active."

so for those of you who are interested, here's a picture of my burgeoning belly. for those who are a little squeamish for such things, look away!! ;)

the notes on the paper might be hard to make out, so the stats are:



mommy weight = -4 (that means four pounds less than when we found out i was pregnant)
baby weight = 1.5 ounces
baby length = 3.5 inches

enjoy!

cloth.

so for those of you who don't already know, derek and i are planning to cloth diaper this expected little bundle of joy. in the past few years, i've done a lot of research on various parenting subjects while i've anxiously awaited the day when derek and i would start a family. now that it's a reality, i'm so glad i was so crazy about reading up on all this before now...because i just don't have the energy to read it all right now.

so it's good that derek and i have read about and discussed a lot of the major issues about raising a newborn...cloth diapering being just one. i'll probably touch on some others as time goes by, but today it's diapers.

did you know that for each child who is diapered with disposables, 2 cubic tons of waste is added to our landfills in disposable diapers? plus, most parents don't know that even with disposables, you're supposed to shake out the poop into the toilet before throwing away the diapers, to limit the amount of bacteria and disease causing waste being put into the ground. if anyone reading this has doubts about one person being able to make a difference in the environment, there's some proof that you can.

so derek and i are going to do our part to keep as many disposable diapers out of landfills as possible.

this weekend, we ordered a stash of fuzzi bunz pocket diapers (they are a shell that you stuff with inserts, depending on the absorbency needed). these are amazing, and get impeccable reviews on cloth diapering sites. our sister-in-law, teresa, swears by them. we've ordered 6 diapers in three sizes that should last for the baby's diapering years. they should also hold up well for future kids.

the fuzzi bunz are on the expensive side of cloth diapers...and we plan to use them for nights and outings...and for babysitters who might be a little leary of prefolds. :)

the rest of our diapering will likely be with unbleached chinese prefolds. these are your typical diaper service diapers. we'll fasten them with a snappi and cover them with any one of several covers we're going to try out: bummis super whisper wrap, prorap, and thirsties.

typically you want enough diapers to last for 3 days, and for infants they recommend 12 diapers...so that means we need a supply of 36 diapers for our little one. the needed number goes down as the baby gets older because there are fewer diaper changes per day.

well, there's a little info about cloth diapering and how we plan to approach it. for times when we do need disposables, we plan to use the seventh generation brand...these are chlorine free, so they're better for the baby's skin, and better for the environment as well.

13 weeks!

well, tomorrow is actually 13 weeks, but we have company this weekend, so i'm taking the opportunity to post now.

according to babycenter.com:

"Fingerprints have formed on the baby's tiny fingertips, her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin, and her body is starting to catch up with her head — which makes up just a third of her body size now. If it's a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries. The baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce."

it's crazy to think the baby has fingerprints when it's only 3 inches long! internal organs are functioning, and at this point, the baby is really just a very tiny person. i wonder when the baby begins to have consciousness and experience time and things like that.

derek and i were talking last night about how amazing it will be at the next ultrasound, not only to find out the baby's gender, but to actually see him/her move around on screen. the ultrasounds we've had thus far were too early for the baby to be moving yet, so it will be incredible to see the baby moving.

it's growing.

well now that i don't feel like i'm gonna puke 24 hours a day, it's time to start documenting the rest of this journey.

derek and i are having a baby. like, we're really going to have a kid. it's growing inside me right now, getting bigger every day...doing crazy things like growing fingernails and ligaments...and stealing all my calcium.

as of today, i am 12.5 weeks along. almost into that blessed 2nd trimester. and i can't tell you how much better i feel than 2 weeks ago. holy cow. what a blessing to actually like food again. for a while there, i didn't know that i would ever enjoy eating again.

we had our first appointment with the doctor on monday. he said everything is right where it should be, everything looks great. we got to listen to the heartbeat, and that was kind of crazy. the kid's heartbeat is twice as fast as mine...you could count it out...it was perfect.

two months from now, we'll have that wonderful ultrasound that will tell us if we buy pink or blue clothes. we can't wait.

that crease around my belly button (you know, the one that separates the upper abdominal chubb from the lower abdominal chubb and becomes more pronounced when you sit) is disappearing...nearly all gone, in fact. the baby is growing. my organs are getting moved around to make room. my pants are getting too tight. and i'm learning that tight pants due to pregnancy are different than tight pants due to weight gain. when things are pregnancy tight, there's just no room for things to squish in under that belt line.

so i guess i've hit that 'transition' period where nothing fits. i have one pair of work pants that still fit, one pair of casual pants and one pair of khakis. that's it. the rest is already boxed up. i had to buy maternity jeans this week because none of mine fit anymore.

emotionally, i'm feeling pretty darn good. even all this grey sky junk isn't getting me down. i'm excited about the baby, can't wait to start attaching identity to it, can't wait to pick a name (once we find out the gender), can't wait to meet the kid. although, i'll gladly enjoy the sleep i have until then. :)