Hiccups

We had our second appointment with the midwife yesterday. Everything went great! We started off with another ultrasound! Wow! The baby has grown so much in just 3 weeks. We were able to see so much this time. For those of you who are not trained in ultrasound technology :) I will explain the two pictures to the left.....

The top one is a picture of the baby's whole body. On the right hand side of the picture is the baby's head. The arms are up by its face and the body is the big bulge in the middle. It looks like the baby has a pot belly already! At the bottom left are the legs and feet and the bright white spot up above the belly is part of the umbilical cord. Pretty neat huh?

The bottom picture is a face shot. On the right hand side of the picture you will see the head and the dark spots in the head are the baby's eye sockets. You can see the nose below that and the mouth below that. Once again, the baby's hands are up by its face. The bulge you see to the left of the baby is the placenta. The baby's body was hiding behind it.

We were able to see the heartbeat again and this time we could hear it really clearly. It was beating in the high 160's. Very normal for this size baby!! The measurements of the baby still say that my due date is right on. The baby is growing well and on schedule. While we were watching the ultrasound, the baby was moving quite a bit. It started out pretty mellow (maybe it was sleeping) and then it woke up and started jumping around and kicking its legs. Suddenly there was a very clear pattern to the baby's movements. It had the hiccups!!! It was so cute to see it in there bouncing up and floating back down with its hiccups. Too bad I couldn't feel it :( It was pretty fun to see!! I also had the dreaded bloodwork done. All went well and there was no fainting...on my part or on Joel's! I have another appointment scheduled at 16 weeks. That will be on March 30. We still won't know what we are having for another 6 weeks or so. I'm ready to start decorating!

Here is the official developmental information.....Your belly may soon be big enough to announce to the world that you're expecting, but your baby is still tiny. In fact, he's only about 3 inches long crown to rump — roughly the size of a jumbo shrimp — and weighs just about an ounce. Despite the small proportions, there's a fully formed baby inside your womb now. Much more proportional than it was a few weeks ago, his head is now only about a third the size of his body. His tiny, unique fingerprints are already in place. His kidneys and

urinary tract are functional, and he's starting to urinate out the amniotic fluid he's been swallowing. As you start your second trimester, most of your baby's critical development will be completed, and your odds of miscarriage will drop considerably.