We're back from Jamaica!

And here's another picture of the belly...

I have another one of Jeremy and me on the beach after the wedding - I'll post it later.

16 Weeks

We are 16 weeks along now, and according to www.babycenter.com, the baby is about the size of an avocado! From babycenter:

"Get ready for a growth spurt. In the next few weeks, your baby will double his weight and add inches to his length. Right now, he's about the size of an avocado: 4 1/2 inches long (head to rump) and 3 1/2 ounces. His legs are much more developed, his head is more erect than it has been, and his eyes have moved closer to the front of his head. His ears are close to their final position, too. The patterning of his scalp has begun, though his locks aren't recognizable yet. He's even started growing toenails. And there's a lot happening inside as well. For example, his heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, and this amount will continue to increase as your baby continues to develop."

Here's a picture from www.i-am-pregnant.com (I like that site because they have the coolest pictures) of the baby's development at 16 weeks:

And here's an (unfortunately unattractive) picture of me at 16 weeks:

Important Dates!

Our next doctor appointment is June 10th, where they'll do the quad screen test. Healthy baby prayers are welcomed! :-)

Then.... as I mentioned before but I'll mention again...................

June 17th is the ULTRASOUND!!!! We'll be 20 weeks then and will find out if our little one is a boy or a girl.

Take our poll to the right to place your bet on the sex of the baby!

It beats for you...

The first time we knew the baby was indeed alive and growing was at my first doctor appointment at 7 weeks. They did an ultrasound and I saw the little heart beating; the tech said it was beating at about 120 beats per minute. I was in awe. The "baby", which was of course an embryo at the time, was a mere black and white blob on the ultrasound picture. I'll scan it and post it at some point so you can see how exciting and unexciting it is at the same time. But to see that little blob-within-a-blob beating at an even pace was a pretty unbelievable sight, especially when the only evidence of my pregnancy was a plus-sign on a pee stick (or 3).

After that, Jeremy was dying to hear the heartbeat. Of course you can't hear it right away, but he did some research and bought the best fetal heart rate doppler he could find. Most reviewers said they could hear the heartbeat at 9 or 10 weeks, so we made ourselves wait until 9 weeks to try out our new gadget. I laid down on the couch as Jeremy squirted the viscous goo onto the doppler probe and began sliding it around on my belly. All we heard was my booming heartbeat and lots of (slightly embarrassing) noises twirling around inside my stomach. We listened every day for nearly 2 weeks, and still heard nothing other than my own body's thumps and gurgles. With still no classic sign of pregnancy (no nausea, only mild fatigue), we weren't so sure that the little bugger was still thriving in there.

I had my next doctor appointment on April 14th, Jeremy's 29th birthday, at almost 11 weeks along. The outcome of the visit would either make or break his birthday, but we were as prepared as we could be for whatever news we got. I anxiously greeted my doctor and told her that I was feeling great - so great that it was making me nervous. She got out her fetal heart rate doppler and moved it around my belly for about 10 seconds - and all we heard was my own heart beating. Then she said, "Do you hear that? That's the baby." I looked at her blankly and told her I didn't hear a dang thing! So she moved the doppler around some more and sure enough, I heard the little chug-a-chug of the baby's heart! I laughed and was once again amazed.

I went home and tried our doppler again, feeling confident that I'd be able to pick up the heartbeat that time - to no avail. I tried almost every day until I finally, FINALLY heard it on April 24th, at 12 weeks. We had been to a concert the night before, and I had gotten up early while Jeremy was still in bed. I went into the "man room" (soon to be the "baby room") and got the doppler out. After probably 3 minutes of moving it around my belly, I heard the baby's heartbeat. I yelled to wake up Jeremy and he ran into the room in a fog to hear the quick little thumps resonating from the doppler speaker. It was an exciting day :-).

These days we can hear the heartbeat any time we try, and it's consistently in the high 150s to high 160s, but lately it's a solid 162 bpm. I've attempted to link audio files to this post - one is a .m4a (iTunes) file and one is a .mov (QuickTime) file.

Doctor Appointment

I had a doctor appointment today that was rather uneventful, other than the fact that I got to schedule my next ultrasound for June 17th!! Five weeks from today, we'll know if we're having a boy or a girl! We tried the needle and thread trick last night, but alas, the needle swung both in circles and back and forth. My friend Emily said that if I was craving more fruit than dairy, it would be a girl... but I've been eating/drinking fruit and dairy in equal proportions, and mainly for nutrition rather than cravings.

To be honest, I'm less interested in knowing the sex of the baby than just being able to see the baby on the ultrasound. We're going to a really high-tech place where the ultrasound pictures are supposed to be really clear. Apparently the baby is about the length of an apple right now, which seems huge to me! It's hard to believe my belly isn't poking out more than it is, knowing there is a person in there with arms and legs and fingerprints! Fingerprints!! I just can't wait to see him or her for myself!

La Panza (The Belly)

I knew when I was pulled aside by my HR person yesterday and asked, "Is there something you want to tell me?", that I must have started showing without totally realizing it. Jeremy took this picture of me tonight and YEP, it's pretty obvious now!

Commence embarrassing photo at 14 weeks and 6 days...

Springtime in Atlanta

Now that pollen no longer hangs in the air like a dense yellow fog, we've been spending more time outdoors. There is a short window of time in Atlanta after the pollen has passed, but the mosquitoes aren't yet out in full force, and that window is coming to a close. In fact, I got my first mosquito sting this morning while I was pulling weeds in front of the house (and oh, the weeds we have).

Today when Jeremy took William on his daily excursion in the backyard, he saw a frog in the pond! We were excited to see another living being out there; we have only had fish and snails to this point. We watched with amusement as he dove into the water and climbed back out to sunbathe. He's brown with a green face.

I got online to see what kind of frog he is, and it turns out he is a bullfrog, a fish-eating frog! I'm so disappointed. If this dude eats our fish, I'm going to have to relocate him. I can't imagine where he came from in the first place since there isn't any water near us, but I will find a new home for him if he dares to feast on my fishies.