Baby's name and check up

23 weeks 1 day

    I am realizing that I don't think I ever officially "announced" our name choice.  We are naming our baby girl, Ava!  We both loved that name from the very beginning.  There was no argument or convincing that needed to go with it.  We haven't fully determined a second name.  We have two very strong contenders.  Again, unlike our boy names that we couldn't agree on, with girl names, we just like too many.  As soon as we "set in stone" her middle name, I will share that too..

   We had another check up today!  First, I have to be thankful that everything is still looking great with Ava .  Second, I am going to be a little fussy that I did not actually get to see her this time.  I have gotten so accustom to getting an ultrasound with each checkup (due to various reasons), that I guess I kind of expected one.  Oh well.  Ava’s heartbeat was 170.  The u/s tech said that was good, and as always, I love hearing her heartbeat. 

   Apparently by 23 weeks, contractions have already started a few times an hour.  I had no idea.  The doctor had me feel my uterus and asked me questions about if I ever noticed it feeling hard.. No… He said it should 3-4 times an hour. Wow, I felt really out-of-touch with my body when he said that.  He said it shouldn’t hurt or anything.  He then went into what to do if I did go into early labor.  Praying that doesn’t happen.

   I won’t have another appointment until October now, but what I am most looking forward to is our 3D Ultrasound scheduled for the end of October- 30 weeks!  I can’t wait to see her again!

   Over Fall break (only 2 weeks away!!!) I will try to work on Ava’s nursery, and if we get a lot done, I will post pictures!
   Oh yeah, and those "teeny, tiny kicks" I was feeling are now full blown soccer kicks.  She doesn't kick that hard all the time, but last night I was watching my belly, and you can actually see her kicking now instead of just feeling it!  Really cool!  It definitely makes me smile each time I feel one! and I LOVE that Ben can now feel them too!

Sneak Peek at a 3D Ultrasound!

20w 4d

When I went to the doctor today, we were planning to do the second half of the anatomy scan (to see her heart now that it is more developed), but we got an extra special surprise!  No, not twins.. We got to see a 3D ultrasound of her for a minute!  It was so exciting to see her little hands open and close and see her fingers move.  I was thrilled!  So I just had to upload the pictures! :-)  We will have our official 3D ultrasound at 30 weeks when she has put on a little bit of weight, but I think she is beautiful already.

FYI, Everything went great with the rest of her anatomy scan- her heart has all 4 chambers working properly and everything is right on track!

Baby Bump- First 20 Weeks

Baby D is a...

18w4d

GIRL!! I can’t believe it has taken me this long to post about it, but we recently found out that we are having a beautiful baby girl!  Everything still looks good in the ultrasound/heartbeat areas. (Heartbeat today was 164bpm.) We’ve had a few more genetic screens done and so far so good.  We had an appointment today and got to see our daughter’s hands, feet, brain, heart, bladder, kidneys, spine, umbilical cord, belly, diaphragm, nose, lips, and maybe even more.  It was a lot to take in, in a short amount of time.  Luckily, the ultrasound tech made a DVD for us, so we can re-watch and see all of her again and again and again :-)! 

            Another exciting development in baby world: I have been able to feel teeny, tiny kicks!  From what I’ve read, I am probably only feeling when she does somersaults not really kicks yet, but it’s cool just the same!  I don’t feel them often, and she almost always catches me off guard.  I have started to notice that she likes to be active around 7:30-8:30pm.  Maybe I am just paying more attention as we sit down after dinner.

            One last thing, I have finally, officially gained 4 pounds from my starting weight!  The first trimester was pretty tough on me, so I had to gain back quite a bit once I could eat again.  I am quite positive that this will be the ONLY time in my life I will be happy to see the scale increase, so I thought it was blog-worthy.

Nuchal Translucency Scan

12w5d

            Yesterday we went to our Nuchal Translucency Screening (the ultrasound to look for genetic abnormalities such as Down’s Syndrome, Trisomy 13, and Trisomy 17).  While the screen is just a predictor not an absolute, everything went really well!  They check for several things during an ultrasound (Nuchal fold, nasal bone, heartbeat rhythm, gestational size), and they also take some more blood from me to look at 2 hormone levels.  We won’t get the full results with the blood work until our next appointment, but everything from the ultrasound was great!  Baby had a Nuchal fold of 1mm (anything under 2.5mm is good), nasal bone was present, heartbeat was 160 bpm, and gestational size measured right on track (actually, one day bigger than their first projected due date, but I was charting my BBT, so I knew they had been one day off all along.)

            Now that we have all the official stuff out of the way… Baby was so cute during the ultrasound!  (For simplicity, I am going to refer to baby as a "he" today, but next time I will use "she" until we know which pronoun is correct.)  He would not cooperate with the u/s tech, so we got to watch him for a long time!  He liked to stretch and play with his hands.  In the profile shot, you can see his arms are up next to his face.  You can just barely see his other hand on the other side of his face.  He played with his foot and sucked his thumb for a while too.  So amazing to watch!!!! 

At this point, we are really close to being out of first trimester (YAHOO!!!), and my morning sickness has been calming down.  I still have difficulty swallowing pills and brushing my teeth, but not every time.   Hopefully it keeps improving!

This and That

11w4d

          Luckily my morning sickness has started to subside, sort of.. I’m still vomiting regularly, but I don’t feel sick all day anymore.  From weeks 6-10, I was pretty much nauseous throughout each day, almost everyday with vomiting intermingled.  Now, I am just sick at night.  My circadian rhythm has always been off, so it kind of makes sense that my “morning” sickness would be at night..  According to everything I’ve read, it is supposed to go away after the first trimester.  I’m telling myself I have less than a week and a half of it left! 

            Other than me feeling icky everyday- we have gotten some work done on the baby room!  Mom came over on Monday and helped me remove the 1970s wallpaper (that was under the OTHER wallpaper I had already removed!).  Underneath the second layer of wallpaper, we also had a bit of a surprise… The room was painted… PINK!  Is it a sign?? (Ben says “NO!”) We’ll find out in about 8 weeks!  Wow, typing 8 weeks gave me a bit of a jolt.  In my mind, the date we find out the gender has seemed like this super far away time that will just never really get here, but 8 weeks really isn’t that long!  Yay!

            Ben and I are still back and forth on our favorite (i.e.: tolerable to each other) boy names.  We have pretty much decided on a girl’s name (we are still determining the middle name, but we have 3 strong options).  If Ben could name our boy without my input, we would have a Santino (Sonny), Vitto, or Ceasar.. If I could name our boy without Ben’s input, we would have an Eli, Isaiah, or Everest..  There are a few names we have both agreed we could live with, but so far, nothing has really struck us both as a great male name.  We’re working on it..

Second Ultrasound!

9w2d

We went back to the doctor today.  We went over all of my many blood tests from our last visit(s).  I found out my blood type (O+).  The doctor said that when the baby is born, we will need to blood type him/her as well.  If Ben is anything other than O, the baby will have a higher chance at becoming jaundice, but the doctor didn’t seem worried about it.   As far as the rest of the blood tests, everything was good to go!

We also got to see our little one and hear the heartbeat again!! Wow, it is amazing the difference 3 weeks makes!  His/her heartbeat was 171 this time, which the doctor said was right on track for 9 weeks.  Also, baby now actually looks like a baby!  We were able to see a clear head and body and cute little arm and leg buds!  It was absolutely remarkable! 

            We get to go back in 3 more weeks to do genetic testing, which will include another ultrasound!  I think I’m getting spoiled getting to have an ultrasound each time I go in.