26 Weeks

Okay, I'm officially a bad blogger. It's been over a month and a lot has been going on. I'll start off by saying that we did have another appointment a couple of weeks ago. We had another ultrasound and our little boy was much more cooperative this time. Everything looks great with him and he's measuring right on track. At this appointment I also did my glucose tolerance test which wasn't as bad as I've heard people say it would be. The good news is that I don't have gestational diabetes. Unfortunately, my hemoglobin was low so they've put me on an additional iron supplement which leaves me sometimes feeling nauseous again. It's making it hard to keep up with work and everything else that we need to do to prepare these days, but we'll get through it.

In other news, the little guy continues to be active and his movements are getting stronger and stronger. He now weighs over a pound and a half and measures approximately 14 inches long so, as you can imagine, things are getting a little crowded in there. We're not only feeling his kicks and punches these days, but can actually feel where he's positioned a lot of the time by just feeling my belly. He's usually pushing on the right side of my belly and we can feel his body pushing out on me. It's amazing to think that that's our baby we're rubbing and patting.

With 26 weeks down and 14 more to go, we've still got a lot to do to prepare. We started registering at Babies R Us and Target last weekend and ordered all of the nursery furniture the other night. Joe will paint the nursery soon and then we'll start getting everything put into place. I've been going to a prenatal yoga class once a week and we'll start our other baby class in a few weeks as well. It's great being in a room full of other pregnant ladies and comparing notes. Just hearing about everyone else's experiences and "pregnant moments" makes me feel surprisingly normal.

Here are some recent prego pics:

On Easter with proud Grandpa Wilhelm

And with Daddy

And the 25 week belly

Also, on a side note, a number of people have mentioned to me that they've tried to leave comments on here, but aren't able to. I'm not sure why, but that seems to have been the case after the first posting or so. I'll try changing some settings. I promise I'm not blocking your comments!

Naughty Baby

Today we had our 20 week ultrasound and our little boy decided it would be funny to be uncooperative. He thought that it would be a good time to flip over and do a face plant as far down in my pelvis as he could, making it impossible to capture everything we needed to on the ultrasound. He was moving his arms and legs the whole time, but refused to move his head from this comfy little resting spot he had found. What a little stinker :-) The problem with his position was that we couldn’t see his heart, so they’ll do another ultrasound when we go in next in another 4 weeks.

Here’s a picture of him tucked into his interesting pose. Doesn’t look to comfortable if you ask me.

Everything else looked great today. We heard his heartbeat again at 150 beats per minute. I also learned that my placenta is posterior (behind the baby), which is the case with about 50% of pregnancies. The good news about this is that the placenta isn’t “cushioning” his movements so we were able to feel them sooner and we continue to feel strong movements.

I’ve also promised some people evidence of the growing belly, so here you go.

20 weeks

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this spring weather! What a refreshing time of year!

Moving and Growing

Our baby boy is definitely making his presence known! I first felt him move a couple of weeks ago and Joe was actually even able to feel a couple of movements the day after I first did. He’s more active some days than others and I’ve gone a few days without feeling him much at all. Last night, however, he was more active than I’ve felt so far. He was moving around for a couple of hours and I could even see the movements as I watched my tummy. What an amazing feeling!

It’s hard to believe we’re nearing the half way point of the pregnancy! I’ve been feeling great and really enjoying the 2nd trimester so far. Baby and I are both going through some pretty significant growth spurts. I’ve been sporting my new maternity wardrobe and loving my growing baby bump. Baby now measures about 6 inches from his head to his cute little tushy. His arms and legs are now in the right proportions to each other and the rest of his body, so his total length is about half of what is expected at birth. He can also hear what is going on outside the womb now so we’ve been talking to him (mostly telling him to keep kicking me). I think he’ll also be very accustomed to the barking of a certain chocolate lab :-)

Here's a picture of what he should currently look like. Cute indeed, but do you think that overbite will correct itself?

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

Yes, it's official: we're going to have a baby boy! During our ultrasound last Thursday our little guy wasn't shy at all about showing off the goods! We didn't actually even have another ultrasound scheduled until March 19th, but we ended up doing one at our last appointment to check on the complications we were having. We were so excited to see that he's healthy and was moving around like crazy.

The news was just what we needed after the past few weeks. It was almost like finding out we were pregnant all over again. We found out we're going to have a son! We can't wait to meet him!

Free at Last!

For those of you that may not know, I've been on bedrest for the past three weeks because of some complications. At 13 weeks I began some sudden heavy bleeding. After a scary night in the ER, we were relieved to discover that our little one was doing just fine. The bleeding lightened up, but continued for another couple of weeks, which was why I was on bedrest. It wasn't the funnest experience of my life, but I was happy to do what I needed to to take care of that little baby. Honestly, I think the respite was good for both of us as well.

Yesterday we had another doctor appointment and it went really well! Everything looks wonderful and I've been "released" from bedrest. They said I can slowly come off of it over the weekend, getting up a little more and running a couple of errands. Then it's back to work on Monday!

We're so grateful for everyone that offered their support to us during this time. It was only a few weeks, but we were so impressed with our family and friends that reached out to us. Words of support, phone calls, visits with food and things to keep me busy ... it was all very much appreciated. We feel very blessed!

Growing Belly

I'm amazed at how fast my "baby bump" seems to be growing all of a sudden! I love the constant reminder of what's going on in there and that my baby is with me at all times. Just as much as I love seeing it grow rounder, I love seeing Joe's excitement for it as well. A few weeks ago, he really noticed the sudden growth spurt. He just stopped what he was doing and said, "Oh my gosh, look at your belly!" He then got on his knees and kissed it all over. Needless to say, I melted. He's such a good daddy!

.

Here's our progress so far:

.

10 weeks

.

14 weeks

16 weeks

Welcome!

We're so excited about our growing family that we decided to start a blog to keep anyone interested up-to-date with the experience. (The fact that I've been on bedrest for the past few weeks, with a little spare time on my hands may have had something to do with it as well.)

Thank you for stopping by!

-Alison