20 Weeks

I am officially halfway through my pregnancy. After my first trimester, the time seems to be flying by. We had another appointment on Wednesday. Everything looked good and Ava's heartbeat was nice and strong. She really doesn't like the doppler. She will only let the doctor listen for a couple of seconds before she runs away and he has to try to find her again. I think it's really cute. Her movements and kicks are getting stronger and more frequent, but they are still not strong enough for Kurt to feel them yet. Hopefully she will put on a big show for him in the next couple of weeks.

Kurt took my 20 week pictures on Wednesday. I look pretty bad, but it had been a really long day! Anyway, here is my growing belly...

Ultrasound Pictures

I promised I would post pictures, so here they are. The first one is a side view of Ava. She is laying on her back with her legs up in the air. She looks like a real baby now!

This pictures shows that Ava is definitely a girl. Once again, this is the first thing we saw when we started the ultrasound.

Ava also kicked me for the first time this weekend. I apparently had way too much sugar at Caleb's birthday party with the cake, punch, etc. After the party, I laid down to watch a movie and Ava kicked me four times in the same spot. She kicked pretty hard, but it was so exciting. I can't wait for Kurt to be able to feel her.

IT'S A GIRL!!!

Thankfully, our baby did cooperate and we are having a little girl! As soon as they put the ultrasound "wand" to my belly she was showing us that she is 100% girl. Of course, they looked at all of the important things such as her kidneys, heart, stomach, bladder, etc. and everything looked great! What a blessing!

We are naming her Ava Grace. Kurt and I are so excited because we could not come up with a boy name that we both agreed on. Now it is time to start shopping! We have so much to do. It makes it so much more real to be able to refer to the baby as "her" or "Ava". We got some great pictures of Ava, but I will have to wait until I get home (probably on Sunday) to scan them in.

One More Day...

I hadn't planned to post today, but the anticipation is killing me! I can't wait to find out what we are having tomorrow. I am so excited to finally be able to call this baby he or she or better yet by his or her name!

I know I am not going to sleep tonight. I woke up all night last night thinking about it. I can't wait to finally be able to look at girl or boy things are start picking things out! Kurt has not let me buy ANYTHING for the baby because we don't know what we are having.

Tomorrow afternoon, Kurt and I will be traveling to my sister's house for our nephew's first birthday party. I can't decide if I am going to be nice and tell them as soon as we find out or make them wait until we see them in person. I would love to see their reaction, but I just don't know if I can hold it in all day!

Let's all hope that the sugar/caffeine advice I have been given works. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be posting to let you all know if we are having a boy or a girl!

Scare

We had our first major scare today. I have been able to feel the baby fairly regularly over the last few weeks. When I am sitting or laying still, I can usually feel the baby move a little. However, this week I have not felt the baby since Monday. I thought I would give it until the end of the week, today, and then give the doctor a call. I wasn't too stressed out about it, but I just wanted the doctor to tell me it was completely normal. I did not expect the response I received.

My doctor was not in the office today, so I spoke to one of the nurses. When I explained to her that I am 18 weeks and haven't felt the baby move in four days, she freaked out. She told me I had waited way too long to call the doctor and that I need to go directly to labor & delivery to have the baby monitored and get an ultrasound. After she lectured me for a while longer, I went to the hospital.

Once I got to the hospital, they told me there was no reason for me to be there and that I needed to go back to my doctor's office. A doctor that works with my doctor was there at the time and he said he would see me when he was done there. So, Kurt and I went over to the doctor's office (it is connected to the hospital) and waited on the doctor. We had a great nurse that went ahead and listened for the baby's heartbeat to calm us down a little bit. The baby's heartrate was 152 bpm. We finally saw the doctor and he said he thought everything was fine, but he was going to send me for an ultrasound just in case. So, we got to have an ultrasound a week early.

During the ultrasound, we found out why I haven't been feeling the baby. Our baby was curled up in a little ball and would not move for anything. The baby was so curled up that it's knees were touching it's nose. We did see the baby move an arm or leg here or there, but it would not move out of it's curled up position. We were able to get a few measurements and the baby is measuring exactly 18 weeks and 2 days like it should be. The baby weighed 9 ounces which puts it in the 58th percentile for weight. This does not surprise me.

Since the baby would not change positions, the sonographer was not able to get the pictures she needed of the heart, kidneys, etc. She was also not able to tell us the sex of our baby. That means we get to keep our appointment for next week and get another ultrasound. She told me to drink a huge sugary drink before the ultrasound to make the baby move around. I hope that works!

That was our stressful day. Kurt said it's amazing how much you love and care for something so tiny you haven't even seen yet. I have to agree. This baby is stressing out mom and dad already!

Below are a few pictures of our baby all curled up in a little ball. I couldn't tell if they were better scanned in as black & white or color, so I did a couple of both.

Above: You can probably make out the head to the right side. The baby is looking toward the left side of the picture. The white line making a "J" coming from the head is the baby's spine. That's how curled up he/she is.Above: You can make out more of the face in this picture. Once again you can see the spine curved up toward the left side of the picture. The baby's knees are touching it's nose.Above: This is the first picture again scanned in black & white instead of color.

18 Weeks

I am now 18 weeks (and one day)! We are getting close to halfway! Our baby is now 5 1/2 to 6 inches from crown to rump and weighs about 7 ounces. The baby's ears are formed and can now hear the outside world. I think Kurt is most excited about this. He has been talking to the baby since the beginning, but the baby can actually hear him now!

We have our big ultrasound in 8 days! We can't wait. Hopefully, we will be able to pick out a boy's name between now and then. I am not counting on it though. :) I will post pictures of the ultrasound as soon as possible on Friday.

I am still feeling pretty good. I have started having back and hip pain which I thought wouldn't start until much later. I have been really tired this week, but I think it is just from lack of quality sleep. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to sleep on my side. Between that and my five trips to the bathroom every night, I don't think I will ever sleep well again. Can you tell I didn't sleep well last night??? Oh well, it will all be worth it in five months...