Pregnancy Update

(Warning: Long post ahead.)

It's been awhile since I've written a post specifically about Baby #3. Much has happened since the last time I updated you all. I started my second trimester a few weeks ago and I'm happy to report that my morning sickness has lessened significantly!!! I still have days and moments here and there where I have low energy or an upset stomach, but most days I feel almost normal! I have been cleaning the house regularly again and I am even cooking actual dinners these days!! WOOT!! My bump is still pretty small. I have graduated to maternity pants full time and just the other day I pulled out and washed all of my maternity shirts and packed away all the normal clothes. As I was unpacking I realized that most of my maternity clothes are for warmer weather (both of the other kids were born in the fall) so I didn't have much to wear for the deep freeze we are in now. Today the kids and I took a trip to the maternity store and bought some long sleeve t-shirts for layering. Hopefully that will allow me to get by with with I've already got so I don't have to spend the money to buy a whole new wardrobe.

I think that I've been feeling the baby move some. It is technically a little early and I've experienced some indigestion so it's hard to tell for sure if it's the baby or just gas, but I enjoy sitting still for a bit and waiting to see if I can feel anything. I'm not sleeping very well right now. I have become addicted to Gilmore Girls and usually watch a few episodes at night before bed so that might be contributing to my initial sleeplessness, but I also wake up often and have trouble staying asleep. Merrie told me to try having a snack before bed ... my blood sugar came back pretty low in my blood work from last time so she said bringing it up before bed might help me sleep better. So I'm going to try that and see how it works and I've also discovered that green tea before bed helps too. Hopefully I'll be getting a good night's sleep again soon!

We just had an appointment with Merrie yesterday and she said that if we wanted her to do an ultrasound to see what the baby was she would try to see if she could tell what we were having. She said the baby was still a little small to tell, but there was a 50/50 chance she would be able to see something. Joel really wanted to know so we went ahead and had the ultrasound. I was amazed at how much bigger the baby has gotten since our last ultrasound 3 weeks ago!!

Spine and ribs at 13 weeks.

Spine and ribs at 16 weeks.

The first thing we saw when she put the scope to my belly were the little feet. They were perfectly positioned together and the picture was so good you could count the toes!!!!

After that she started looking for the money shot! The baby was moving around so much she had a hard time getting a good image that she could look at for more than a couple of seconds at a time, but she finally found one and made the announcement ... It's a boy! (probably why she was able to tell so early) She kept looking to see if she could get a really good image to print for us, but he was so wiggly that it's only obvious to a trained eye. When all was said and done she said she was about 95% sure of her boy diagnosis, but she said we'd do another ultrasound next time to confirm. I have to say I was shocked. Completely and totally shocked! I was sure it was a girl. This pregnancy is so much more like Isabel's than like Gabe's and I just felt sure that it was a little girl in there. Joel was afraid that I would be so disappointed that I would cry. He kept studying my face and asking if I was ok. While I was a tiny bit disappointed not to get another little girl I was still happy to find that we had a healthy baby in there who was growing and moving and who would be just as precious as any little girl. I am starting to recover from my shock now and I am getting used to thinking of him as a him. I've been picturing this poor little guy with bows in his hair and in pink and purple outfits for 16 weeks!! The bow images are coming less often now and he is more often wearing blue than pink :)
Here is a cool shot of the cord (as you can see)! Merrie said that the cord looks very thick which is really good! She even put the machine on a setting where you can see the ingoing and outgoing blood flow in the cord...... pretty neat to see it working and you can really see how it twists when you see it in color!

Almost done .. for those of you who are actually still reading this :)

Joel and I are going to have some difficulty naming this little guy! We already had a name picked out for a girl, but we could never agree on anything for a boy. I think we are going to have to work very hard on the big C word ... COMPROMISE!!! It has also recently hit me that with this baby being a boy I could very well have another 9 pounder .... not something I enjoyed much the first time. Big boys run in the family so it seems as though I'm doomed! Another thing to ponder ... the last time I had a boy I started out all little and cute and then got to be the size of a house ... AND I was a week late!!! So, I'm still wrapping my head around these unpleasant indicators, but I suppose the best thing to do to avoid a panic attack is to just take it a day at a time. I'll worry about my house-ness when it happens!