It's a BOY!

I had my level II sono today and they did not do it in 3D or 4D just the regular ol' sono machine... when I asked, the lady said, "We don't do 3D here for fun." For fun?? Anyhow...

The sonographer was training an intern so the intern (who looked like a smaller Kate Winslet) did the measurements and the sonographer watched/helped. They were more professional than friendly. They didn't show us (Austin) much fun stuff, they were all about measurements. And when they walked out of the room, I said to Bill that they didn't give us any pics and that's when the intern came back in the room and said, "Let me print you some pictures." She printed 4 and 2 of them are the same. Not to be inconsiderate but gee thanks... The last time we went there at 12wks we got like 10 pics and the sonographer did her best to get good cute pics just for us. Not this time.

Now the fun stuff. The heart rate was 138 and IT'S A BOY! Very clearly a boy, might I add. The pics they gave me were 2 side profiles, one of the baby's feet crossed and one of his penis - no spine, no arms, no legs, no toes, no nothing... Poor Austin was bored and to top it off, he wanted a sister.

I'll scan the pics when I get to work on Monday, right now, I'm going to take a nap.

They did say that everything looked great.

We're all thrilled. Bill was calling his friends saying that they had enough boys between them that they could carry on the card games. I think he's more excited about a boy than he thought he would be.

18wks and Insecure

Last night I cried. My body is getting the best of me...

I'm so insecure about my body right now. The year before I got pregnant I started gaining weight so I decided one day when my pants were so uncomfortable all day to go on a no sugar diet and to work-out. So we bought an elliptical and I stuck to my diet and I lost 13-14 lbs! I bought new jeans in sizes that I hadn't seen in a very long time and Bill LOVED it. He thought I looked great.

Now I'm fat. I know I'm pregnant BUT Bill is a butt man and all of my weight gain has gone straight to my butt/hips/thighs and I'm worried that he doesn't find me attractive anymore... :( I mean why couldn't he be a boob man? Even at that he's afraid to tell me that he likes my bigger boobs b/c he doesn't want me to think that he won't like them when I'm no longer pregnant/breastfeeding.

We did talk last night and he reassured me that he does still find me attractive and apologized for not being more vocal about it. He's never very vocal about that stuff...

I know you ladies are tired of me complaining about my weight when, in fact, I'M PREGNANT but I guess I'm just more insecure and after coming back from the cruise b/c I don't know how much weight I gained and I'm afraid of getting on the scale to find out.

Thanks for listening.

I'm back from Alaska!

We had a great time!

And despite whatever anyone said, the weather in Alaska is (was) beautiful!! It was sunny & 65 - 72 deg almost everyday and it only sprinkled on us once for about a 15 min period on the 4th of July in Juneau. We did get to see fireworks before we left Skagway and it was kind of weird to see fireworks at 11pm with mountains as your back drop b/c the sky was still too light for the fireworks to actually show up had they shot them that high. We got to see whales and bald eagles and the scenery was breath taking.

All-in-all we had a blast! The traveling was tiring though... wore me out. Saturday morning the ship had breakfast from 6-8am so we woke at 6:30am and went to breakfast...

Let's put it this way...

6:30am Saturday, we were in Alaska
6:30pm Saturday, we were in Las Vegas
6:30am Sunday, we were in Baltimore

Yesterday we got home at 9am, slept from 10:30am - 2:30pm, and went back to bed at 8:30pm and I finally feel rested.

Pics... well, it could be a couple of days before I post pics. We bought a new camera before we left and I still need to download the software and figure all of that out and then I will load it at work so I can upload the pics to my Yahoo acct from here since it would take DAYS to upload all the pics from my lousy 24bps dial-up connection at home. I'll let you know when I'm done.

It's true what they say, there's no place like home. I had a great time but I'm glad to be back!

Bye for now! (Alaska)

I'm leaving work in about 10 mins to go home and finish packing for Alaska and then were taking off in the morning.

I'll be back July 10th.

16wk appt

Well, it was pretty boring. My blood pressure was 112/58 and I think I gained 3lbs (according to them...).

However, the baby's h/b went from 157 @ 12wks to 140 now... He said it was normal. That made me nervous after being anxious to start with... To me, that's a big drop but he told me that I didn't have to read between any lines with him b/c if there's something to worry about, he'll tell me.
Also, I asked him about my headaches and he prescribed me codeine and an anti-nausea pill.

And last but not least, I asked him why my butt/thighs were getting so big. He said that it was from an increase in estrogen. So I said, "Is that why they say that you carry girls in the butt/hips (low) and boys out front (high) (even though I thought that was the other way around for some reason) b/c of the extra estrogen that you get from your daughter?" And he said, "Yea."

So none of my mid-wives tales are clear cut for one sex or the other, even the Chinese chart says both when you look at two different ones.

My "big" sono is July 21 and it will be in Baltimore no matter how much I asked that it not be (Baltimore is like 1.5hrs away and last time it took all day and neither Bill nor myself wanted to miss another day of work.) b/c that's where I went for the genetic counceling and he said that they really know what they are doing there and can pick up very subtle measurements and with my age, he wants me to go there even though all my results came back great. It will be a level II. I wanted at least a 3D, I've never had one before and this could be my last pregnancy... I'm bummed about that.
That's about it.

Also, he said that I should be feeling the baby more at 17wks.

She had her!

My 'first' niece is here and I got to watch the delivery.

Ainsley was 5lbs 9ozs and was 19" long and beautiful w/dark hair.
My sister had a fairly easy time with labor. She got an epidural and breezed right though, when it came time to deliver, she pushed for 22mins and didn't tear or need stitches of any kind. The dr was awesome with the delivery.

The baby was like 2wks early - not surprising since her first born was 10 days early - so she still had a lot of vernix (A greasy white substance coats and protects the baby's skin in utero. ) on her, which to me felt and looked like she was covered in Elmer's glue, so I never got to see her eyes open b/c they were glued shut with the vernix but my sister said once they bathed her, her eyes were open.

I don't have any pics and I was home by 8:30pm and in bed by 9:45pm but I was EXHAUSTED - and this morning, even after a FULL night of sleep, I'm still EXHAUSTED. You'd think I was the one that gave birth. Ugh! I need to WAKE UP!

I can't wait to see Ainsley again but I don't think I'll get to see her until Friday...

On a side note: I love my sister's kids birthdays. Her son was born on 4-7-04 and her daughter was born on 6-7-06.

Updates

Me first. :)

Today I'm 13wks - YAY!!! :D It's time to celebrate and time to relax.

Also, I got the results back from my genetic testing. Before the tests, my odds were 1 in 299 for Down Syndrome - after the tests, my odds were lowered to 1 in 5,961 whew!!! And for the Trisomy 13 & 18 my odds, before the tests, were 1 in 534 and after the tests, they were 1 in less than 10,000. Great news all around. The lady that called said to me, "Those are the odds you get when you're a teenager."

Now for my sister:
She did not go into labor yesterday and she was to be at the hospital this morning at 6:30am for registration. Well, they called her and told her that they didn't have any beds to call them at 7. So she called at 7 and they told her to call back at 9. So she called back at 9 and they said that they still didn't have any beds that they would call her. Now when she called at 7, she informed the nurse that she was already dilated to 4 and the nurse said, "I know! We have that marked on your chart and we HAVE to get you in."

So I came to work. I was going to take the whole day off and just go to the hospital with my sister but when they told her to call back at 9 I just made the decision to go to work until she heard something... so that's where I'm at now. Just waiting on GO.