31 Weeks Today - From 9 months down to 9 weeks... Where did the time go so quickly?

It seems like October is coming so fast. It seems like we have so much left to do, so many little thinbgs we still need to get in order to be prepared for little Hunter's arrival. In reality I'm sure we're doing well and are probably a bit ahead of the game, but still... it seems like there's not much time left before he's here and we'll really find out if we have everything we need or what we might be forgetting!

The appointment on Thursday went really well. Drank up my tall glass of orange sugar water which didn't taste as bad as I'd expected, but on an empty stomach it felt really awful for the next half hour or so until it started leveling out in my system... Hunter liked it, and tried his hardest to distract Mommy throughout the appointment. We heard him punching the doppler while trying to find his heartbeat, must have been hard punches because they were pretty loud on the microphone! He must have decided during the long drive to wiggle out of my side and I feel a lot better now that his head isn't bulging out to the right of my stomach anymore. When my doctor came in she said things look great and my stomach is measuring right where it should be, but just to be sure his growth is on track she wants to see us for another ultrasound in 2 weeks. This will be our 5th one! I'm sure everything will be A-OK and am thrilled we get to see him again, I wasn't sure if we would be able to after the last one. I can't wait to see how much bigger he's gotten, and am curious about how much he weighs now... I can tell he's getting big now! When I stepped on the scale I was surprised to find out that since my last appt. 5 weeks ago I've gained 9lbs!!! Bringing the total to 17lbs so far. Hopefully it stays at a decently low amount in the next couple months because I was really hoping not to go over a 25lbs gain, but now I wouldn't be surprised if its between 25-30. Gotta keep up my motivation to stick with my bike riding because I've been slacking off with that lately... haha which might have something to do with the 9lbs in 5 weeks!

We also found out that my doctor doesn't want to induce me after all! She said that because she'd like to see as few interventions as possible, we'll just let him come on his own, and avoid a c-section at all costs. The fewer risks to me and the baby, the better. I love my doctor! I guess the only downside now is that we can't schedule J's days off, we'll just have to wait and see when Hunter decides he'd like his birthday. I hope he doesn't wait 13 days to come out on my birthday even though that would be pretty cool!

We also got our baby monitor (the motion detection one from Angelcare) and will be installing it and testing it out soon. J's mom got that for us, the last of the big items we need before Hunter is born. Now it's a short list of small things... fortunately we've got a couple months to gather up what we need!

I finally got a new updated belly shot. Last weekend (30 weeks) and you can really tell 'someone' has had a growth spurt! My belly has just exploded since the last picture I took, and you can really see where those 9lbs went to!

23 Weeks, 3 Days - It's been a busy month!

Well it's been a couple weeks since my last update. We have been super busy! Finally we found out we got the house, and the posession date is July 1. Fortunately we have the keys already so we've been going in and working on the bedrooms and living room, and cleaning up everywhere else. Things are looking great so far! We're done the nursery already, and just need to move stuff into our bedroom and the living room to finish those off. Here's my pictures so far...

So our little boy has his room all set up and waiting for him to get here! Still 3 1/2 - 4 months to go until he's here... Man does that seem fast!

Finally 2 weeks ago I started feeling him kicking. It wasn't much at first but has been getting stronger all the time. J can feel him when he kicks hard enough. A couple mornings ago I was woken up by the little guy's kicking and I snuggled up behind J and let the baby kick him a little bit, what a fun way to wake up! It's been pretty consistant the last few days, I feel a few kicks each hour, and it gets really crazy after supper, he's just in there kicking and punching away to his heart's content! He's even woken me up a few times each night, he kicks so hard. I think it's awesome!

We also had another ultrasound yesterday morning. 8:30am we got in and H was moving around, not kicking hard enough for me to feel it, but we could see his movements. He was playing with his face, and then pulling on his feet. We saw him wiggle his fingers and toes. He even managed to touch his foot to his forehead, pretty flexible! We got a picture of him yawning. He's looking so much bigger, and he's looking pretty cute! The ultrasound tech said he's got long legs, and weighs 600g, or 1lb 5oz. Right on track with what he should weigh. We couldn't get a measurement on how tall he is, because of his legs being folded up by his head! The tech also confirmed for us, he is most definitely a little boy! I am so happy and excited to meet him... these next few months will just fly by I'm sure!

The big yawn!Our cute little guy is smiling at us!

After the ultrasound, I got my bloodwork done and was expecting to have to get a phlebotomy this week sometime. So imagine my surprise when the nurse walks out and tells me, this pregnancy is doing great things for me, and my counts actually came down since last time! That was awesome news, I am not sure why my counts would come down when they normally go up until I get blood taken out, but apparantly I just need to do another blood test in 2 weeks to see where the #'s are at and I think I won't need blood out for another month yet. It's been 8 weeks so far, and by the time I get my next bloodwork done it will have been 10 weeks. That's wonderful! J said if pregnancy makes my blood counts easier to manage, we'll just have to keep me pregnant. What a goof. It's pretty awesome that I still don't need anything done though! Yay!

15 Weeks - Little Baby Ninja!

Aimee came up with that one... Our baby is a ninja!

It might be a bit hard to tell but the little munchkin is lying with the head on the right, facing out, and the bigger round shape to the left is the body, with a foot along the top, doing some kind of funky ninja kick at the screen!

Our appointment yesterday went really well. The nurse tried to listen to the heartbeat on the doppler but wasn't having much luck because the little one was wiggling out of the way every time. We heard lots of little thumps and bumps that turned out to be the baby kicking and punching away in my belly! I didn't know that could even be heard... and it was funny because I can't feel it moving around in there, but it was pretty active and squirming all over the place! We got to see the little one on ultrasound to measure the heartbeat (140), and saw just how much bigger he or she has gotten since last time. It's a big difference! Baby is 15 weeks, and close to 4 inches long. J says it looks like a little alien right now! We saw the face, of course not totally developed yet but we saw the eyes and mouth, and the legs were curled up so a foot was up by the face! It was great and I just love getting to see the little one so often. We go back on May 10 for the big 18 week ultrasound, which will take longer and we should be able to find out the gender, as long as he or she cooperates! I can hardly wait, just 3 1/2 more weeks!

The long-awaited belly shots...

Sunday April 4, at 13 w 2 d
Sunday, April 11, at 14 w 2 d

More belly pics to come, bigger and better!!!

Adjusted Date - 8 Weeks Today!

So I finally got my long-awaited appointment yesterday morning! It was pretty basic, check in, wait an hour, finally they called my name, I got weighed, spent some time answering questions on J and my and our family medical history, got poked and prodded and stripped from the waist down (Oh joy!), and then sat on the table with a sheet on me and waited for the doctor to get in. She came in wheeling a monitor and it was time for the ultrasound! Now because of how early I am, it was not really possible to do a normal ultrasound, so I found out just how an internal ultrasound it done! I didn't care though, because right away the little baby showed up on the screen and we got to see it with the little heart beating, and it looked perfect! I was amazed at how clear the image was, it looked teriffic and exactly like the 8-week pics I've seen online before. It was just so incredible to see the little one there, just doing its thing inside my tummy with us all watching! I could see J's excitement just explode as he watched our little baby's heart beating strong and steady. It makes me so happy just to watch his face as he saw the baby for the first time. I know it probably didn't make a huge difference before just because I was the only one feeling any symptoms and he was kind of out of the loop, but yesterday he was right there with me experiencing seeing it for the very first time, and it was wonderful.

You can see the head on the right, it is on its back facing up and the head takes up most of what you can see of the baby! The feet are on the left kind of curled up. The image on the screen was much clearer, and the little heart was just beating away. The doctor measured the baby at 7 weeks, 6 days which was a day ahead of my calculations. So today instead of being 7w6d, I am 8w! We go back again on April 1 for another appointment and hopefully get another picture of our little baby!

Anyways after that most exciting part of the whole appointment, I had to pee in a cup and then we went home. I've been excitedly showing everyone who already knows we're expecting this picture, and we plan to really announce it to everyone else after the April 1st appointment. I can hardly wait! Great, another long wait! I think this one will just drag on and on for the next 5 weeks till I can see baby again!