The Most Recent Ultrasound

Thanks for all the congratulations. We were really happy to learn that she is a girl, because we had been picturing ourselves with a daughter. You might recall I ate extra sweets around the time of conception. Don't know if it was fate or the Skittles, but anyway we have a girl coming.

The ultrasound started on a really solemn note though because we could hear the heartbreaking sobs of an inconsolable woman who I imagine received some very bad news during her ultrasound. I was fighting tears as Bill and I left the ultrasound waiting room to go in for my ultrasound. I felt so sorry for her. Her grief reminded me of how extremely lucky I am to have this healthy child growing inside me.

When went in for the ultrasound, I was relieved when I recognized the u/s tech as the woman who did my first ultrasound, because I remembered her as being very patient and kind - carefully explaining everything we were seeing. Also, I had a very bad experience with another tech there at my 12 week ultrasound, and I was glad that my doctor had remembered to make sure we didn't have to deal with her again.

This time we had a very good experience. Vicki, our tech, explained what she was looking for, then let us know that each thing looked good. I remember she said the baby's heart was "pretty" - and it WAS pretty. She was very informative. She would say, for example, "We're looking here to see that the heart has four chambers, and it does."

She asked if we wanted to know the gender. We said yes. When she said, "It's a girl," Bill squeezed my hand so tightly. The reaction would have been the same if she had said the baby was a boy, of course. It was just so great to reach another milestone of the pregnancy.

Anyway, everything checked out perfectly. The ultrasound confirmed that I have an anterior placenta, which I suspected because when I feel movement it's very faint. So I used to think "mellow baby" now I wonder if she's not a hellion, since I DO feel her moving around in there even with the cushioning of the placenta.

We'll be doing another ultrasound some time after 30 weeks. This will be a 3D ultrasound. Cool! I am just under a such spell each time I get to peek into her little world.

It's A Girl!

I am excited to announce that we are expecting a very healthy baby girl! It took a while to count all of its HER fingers and toes but I am glad to announce they were all there! Click on the image below to view more pictures.


One Excited Poppa Bee,
Bill

Baby Stuff! Lots of photos.

OMG! Suddenly, we have so much baby stuff.


I was so glad I went home for lunch today, because the Rockabye CDs from my mom had arrived! Now, in addition to Radiohead, baby has The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd lullaby CDs for bedtime music hour.


ALSO, arriving in the mail today: my fetal stethoscope!!! This is a nifty device I can use to hear the baby. I tried it out on my lunch break today, but I think all I could hear was the placenta (it makes a noise, too). I'll have more time to play with it tonight, though.


We got our stimulus check, too. Nursery furniture is in our near future, I suspect.

And there is MORE stuff...
Yesterday, my dear friend Cheryl gave me a lot of cute baby clothes, new and hand-me-down (a few items looked very familiar; I'm pretty sure they came from Bill & me. Really kind of neat that our baby will be wearing stuff we picked out before we even knew we'd have a baby of our own some day!).

Onesies & a Snuggly Sleeper Thingie:


Cool Nightmare Before Xmas Onesie (w/stripes!!! I love stripes!):


Misc. Bibs (Including a Spit Happens bib):


Most Kickass Eat Brains bib (modeled by my RC Dalek):

Cheryl got this bib at Tear It Up, one of her favorite shops, which has really cool clothes for adults AND babies/toddlers. The bib is way better quality than pookie's other "I eat brains" bib. We love it!

Adorable Memphis Zoo hat (baby's first hat!!):


State Quarters Coin Collection from Granny

We saw Granny over the weekend and she gave the baby $10 rolls of each of the state quarters released in the first two years of the state quarters. This is going to pay for baby's college education someday. ;)

We are so lucky and so grateful.

20 Weeks Belly

No slimming black outfit this time! Here's a few other shots of my 20 weeks pregnant belly.

Daddy Felt Flutterbug Kicking

Twenty weeks today and feeling great. :) We're halfway there! Time to get serious about childbirth lessons, hiring a doula, deciding on a hospital, etc.

Yesterday, we were at a family reunion in middle Tennessee, and as Bill rubbed my tummy he was surprised to feel the baby kicking. I couldn't even feel it, so he wasn't sure what he was feeling, then I felt a big kick and he did at the same time. :) Very neat!

Later that evening, while I was telling my mom about it via IM, as if on cue, the baby gave me the biggest kick thus far. The rascal. :)

In other news, since the m/s seems to be gone, I've been cutting back on the Unisom at night. The vivid dreams I had been experiencing at the beginning of my pregnancy have returned now. I had a cute dream Saturday night: I was rocking the baby and singing lullabies. Awww.

Twenty week belly pics coming soon!

China's #1 Mom!

Let's hope the baby doesn't get all of my features!

It would be a little bit scary! Yikes!

Me, Lying Down

My Pregnant Tummy

Did you want to see how big my tummy is getting? If not, TOO BAD!!! We finally bought a new digital camera, because we can't find the other one ANYWHERE!

Here's photos from earlier tonight, today I'm exactly 19 weeks pregnant.

Baby on Board (another photo).

I'm feeling great and counting the days (11) until the BIG ultrasound.

Baby's First Radiohead CD

Yesterday, we bought the bebe the Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Radiohead CD. You can hear samples of the music on Amazon, if you'd like. It's basically Radiohead tunes played on glockenspiel, chimes, toy pianos, etc. Very cool.

I let the baby listen to Radiohead while I was reading at bedtime.

There are a lot of cool CDs in the Rockabye Baby series, that I want to get:

• The Beatles


• The Ramones


• The Cure


• Led Zeppelin


• Metallica


• Pink Floyd


• Bob Marley


• Nirvana


• Bjork


• NIN


• Queen

Don't worry. I'm not going to get all of those! Definitely The Beatles, though.

Look How Big Flutterbug is Now!

I like this photo to put the current size of my darling Flutterbug in perspective:


If you think that's big, you should see my tummy! We're still trying to find the digital camera so we can take belly pics. :(

I'm pretty sure I'm feeling this little one moving around now. I love it!

Maternity Clothes Mini Shopping Spree

I bought some more maternity clothes today, mainly work clothes. I was getting sooo tired of wearing the same 2.5 outfits to work over and over again!

Now all I really need is a pair of GOOD maternity jeans that don't fall down all the damn time! If such a thing exists, that is.

My loot is pictured below.
Sexy maternity pants, right? Haha, gosh maternity pants are so goofy looking! Anyway, I bought these in brown for work.

This is a very soft lightweight layering tee.

This looks way better in person. It's good for work or going out.

Nice lightweight and cotton! Now I'm ready for a Memphis summer!

As with the other blouse, perfect for Memphis in the summertime.

Screening Results & More Thumps

Lots of posts today, right?

Just got a call from my OB's office, and the final screening for birth defects is good. Everything looks normal. Nice, healthy baby!

Also, thought I'd mention that flutterbug must be practicing karate again. I felt a rapid-fire thump thump thump just south of my navel earlier this morning (not too long after complaining to Daddy Bill that I wished the baby would move around some!). As I type this I just felt a sort of rolling sensation in my tummy, too! Is that the baby or am I getting hungry?

Brain Eating Zombie Dalek Baby!!!

Our cute little Dalek robot models the flutterbug's first bib:

First Mother's Day

As my cousin says "in-utero soo counts"!

Bill remembered me on Mother's Day. He gave me a very cute card that managed to make me sniffle a bit AND giggle. He also gave me two cute tees from Haute Mama. We still can't find our digital camera, so I'm going to attach photos from the web so you can see what the tees are like.

Also, he's been toiling on setting up a big nice closet for me, so I can move my stuff out of the nursery closet. We should finish that project up tonight.

We had a great time at Bill's parents' house yesterday. His entire family got together for Mother's Day. We ate a lot and then ate some more. Bill and I escorted the kids along the drainage ditch behind the house. We watched as they constructed a pretty impressive dam in the ditch. If Bill's parents' back yard floods, we didn't see anything, ok?

My tees:

"i can grow people"


"Does this baby make my butt look big?"


Sadly, though, they had no "Dingo Bait" tees at Haute Mama. :(

Happy Mother's Day

On the BPP recently they were discussing a cute web site called Postcards From Yo Momma, which is a site where people upload emails, snippets of IM conversations, etc. from their moms. It's a really funny web site.

Here are a few samples:

a pleasure talking to you

Thank you for the pictures that I cannot open or even look at. It was a pleasure talking to you last night on the phone when you were more interested in a baseball game than speaking to me.

Let me ask one question, I know what it consists of to put a picture on the email and send it. Especially since I sent you a complete CD of Marta’s wedding. Is it that you don’t think that much of me to send a picture of Anna that I could print??

Anyway thanks.
Your mother

turkey bacon

I was up in the middle of the night with aching bones and fever. It is not possible. Everybody interrupts, calls, comes by. Anyway, when I was lying there feeling like I had flu, I wondered if you can get bird flu from eating turkey bacon?

Love you,
Mom

nasal irrigator
In other news, your father asked me this morning if he could borrow my nasal irrigator. I got very excited, thinking he was being pro-active in fighting the cold that’s got him sniffling non-stop already. Turns out he just wanted to use the irrigator to inject jelly into the croissants he was baking. I could write a fucking book.

I’ve got to buckle down now and read this new script.

XXOO
MA

awesome idea

* Mom:
Why don't you marry your friend Caroline, she can have a baby. Your brother could be the donor so it would be my real grandchild. It would be your neice or nephew as well as your son or daughter.
* Me:
Wow it appears you've put some thought into this.
* Mom:
it came to me last night, I thought it was an awesome idea. run my idea by Caroline I'll even pay for the psychiatrist the kid will need one day.

Ok, ok - that's enough! I could put dozens here. There are some real gems on the site.


I thought of promising my unborn child to never be like these moms, but some of the emails on the site remind me of myself already!

Prenatal Yoga Report

I'll keep this short and sweet. I loved it! It was gentle, but still challenging. The instructor seemed truly kind and friendly. There were only about eight people in the class, and it was really nice to spend some time with other pregnant women.

One of my classmates noticed I was reading a Murakami novel and it turns out she's a big fan of his, too. How cool is that?

I felt great after class. I met Bill at Fresh Slices for a tasty dinner al fresco. It was a great evening.

Puking, News

Dang it!

I was craving movie theater popcorn yesterday at work, so I sweet talked Bill into going to the 4:45 Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden at Studio on the Square. The movie was pretty good, and the popcorn was divine. I ate quite a bit, maybe too much?

A few hours later, just before Bill was getting ready to serve up dinner, I suddenly began vomiting like CRAZY!!! It was really awful! Skip down to the next paragraph if you don't want to hear about it in graphic detail. Somehow the vomit was coming out my nose at the same time as my mouth. I felt like I was drowning, it stung so badly! It was really terrible. After the puke fest, I had to spend about an hour with my neti pot rinsing partially digested popcorn bits from my sinuses. Oh it felt awful coming out! Yucky yuck yuck!

I feel fine today, though. Just a little disappointed I didn't make it to double digits on the Ralph Free Days.

Tonight I have my first pre-natal yoga class at Evergreen Yoga. I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to feel a little bit shy, though, going all alone. I usually drag Bill along to yoga classes, but he's not gestating, so he can't come along.

Also, I'm scheming up my first real maternity clothes shopping spree (as opposed to buying one or two items). I'll probably go to Macy's and get some stuff online, too. Before I do that, however, I really must put away some of my non-pregnancy clothes to make room for the new stuff AND I need to get the sewing machine out so I can hem some of the cute stuff my mama friends gave me. I keep meaning to do it, but then I get distracted and/or lazy.

No Puking, No News

Well gosh, if I'm not puking, there's not much to report, huh?

One thing: I noticed this morning a little thump in my tummy! Could that have been the fetus formerly known as flutterbug flexing those 17 week muscles? Bill said maybe it was a tiny little drop kick!

Well, I don't know, but maybe... :)

Prenatal Check Up #4

The OB appointment was pretty uneventful. They drew blood for the second part of the birth defects screening. The highlight of the visit, of course, was hearing the baby's heartbeat going whooosh whoooosh whoooosh on the doppler. We'll be doing the 20 week ultrasound on May 30, so I'll actually know the baby's gender before June (unless the baby is VERY shy).

Also, we found out that (as Bill told me) we'll be getting a 3D/4D ultrasound through the practice "just for fun" at some point after 30 weeks, because the babies aren't "cute enough" until then. And that's the truth! Anyway, that's kind of cool. I love any opportunity to "see" the bebe.

The Libra Child

If Kogojira arrives "on time" s/he will be a Libra (like Mommy). Here's a list of things to expect from my Libra child I found online while browsing maternity clothes: