18 weeks! =)

Yesterday, little baby and I celebrated 18 weeks gestation. Pretty exciting stuff.

I haven't been blogging regularly so I really need to fix that.. although I think I say that *every* time I blog and I always forget.

We had an ultrasound (elective/fun -ie: gender determination) on 12/31/2011. Our little baby was ever so gracious in showing his/her beautiful face, and showing us lots of fingers and toes -- but would not cooperate with us in showing its gender! We have another rescheduled for tomorrow morning (1/6/2012) at 11AM, so hopefully, we will know tomorrow whether we will be bringing another little girl or a boy into our home.

We had a prenatal check up today with the head of our OB group (Dr. Guy) -- I've never met him before, so it was nice to finally put a face to the name. He is one of the "preferred" doctors in my circle of Mama friends, because he's natural friendly, supports VBAC and has a pretty darn low c-section rate when compared to other OB's in our area. I'm also told that he will do "back up" care for home births, although I'm not sure about that.

Our little baby was super cooperative for Dr. Guy today, and we were able to get a heart rate immediately - 158 bpm. I'm measuring right on track and still haven't really gained any weight. I don't go by their scales, I always go by my home scale - I weigh myself in the same amount of clothing at the same time every day.

They scheduled our 20 week Anatomy Scan for 1/20/2012 at 10:30am. I think Bill may actually be able to come to that one, because I think he gets home late the night before -- which is good :)

We have a name picked out for a little lady - Claire Elizabeth.
We are stuck on a name for a boy. We've tossed up several but none of them seem to really be "sticking" with either of us. Ian, Isaiah, Joseph, Nolan, David, Robert, etc. but none of them are really calling home to us. Maybe the baby won't have a name and we'll just call him "Hey You" until we're forced to make a decision before leaving the hospital.

On a side note, we bought James a toddler bed today from Once Upon A Child. It was $40 and I like it. It fits quite perfectly in our room, and I'm really hopeful that we'll be able to move from sleeping with Mommy & Daddy, to sleeping in Mom & Dad's room in his own bed with a pretty smooth transition. Eventually, I do want him to start sleeping in his own room.. it won't be good for us if he's waking up every time the baby cries this summer.

Our little baby love.

I wanted to make sure I wrote after every Doctor's appointment. I had an appointment last week (on the 7th of Nov) and I forgot to blog about it.

Nothing too exciting.. I spent a while talking with my favorite Midwife, Lisa. We talked for a while, and she gave me some reassuring and positive encouragement. I needed to hear it. She, herself, has had two VBAC's - and is VERY sure that I'll be successful with baby number 3.

She was unable to find the baby's heart beat with a doppler (of course, I was only 9 weeks) so she did a quick ultrasound for me and printed off a picture. The little guy/girl was just fine and has gotten SO big since our last ultrasound at 6 weeks!

My next appointment is Dec 8th, assuming that my best friend doesn't go into labor that day/night and I'm unavailable =) I will be 14 weeks then.

We probably won't be able to find out what the baby is until some time in January.. I'll be 20 weeks right around January 18th. I don't want to waste the money that we spent last time at a crappy 3D ultrasound place who couldn't get us good pictures. I think we'll hold onto the money, and wait until our 20 week anatomy scan, and find out then. =)

Here's a picture of our little love!

                                         

And baby makes 5.

I've been horrible at updating my blog lately. I've had a hard time finding the motivation, and a hard time finding the "free" time (as if I have a lot of that anyways) to write.

We found out several weeks ago that we would be expecting baby #3. It was slightly surprising, to say the least, but we're not at all upset. We wanted to have another baby, and we wanted them to be close in age. We were hoping to wait another 6 months, but it looks like there were other plans. That's how life is - and we're alright with it.

As with James, I was in total disbelief this time around. It was like, I knew that I was pregnant, but yet I didn't believe that I was pregnant. Is that crazy? Haha. It should sound crazy. No, crazy is the amount of pregnancy tests that I took before finally convincing myself that I was, indeed, pregnant again. I think this time, the number tops around 12. Don't judge me.

We've had two ultrasounds so far.. one at 6 weeks and another at 7 weeks. Both showed a little tiny dot with a lovely little heart flutter.

We are roughly 9 weeks pregnant now, and have another doctor's appointment on Monday, November 7th. I'm hoping for another ultrasound but I'm not crossing my fingers.

So.. questions that everyone has asked? Was it planned? Hmm.. a better answer to that would be that it was not prevented. Take that how you will.

Do we want a boy, or a girl? The answer is.. we just want a healthy baby, and we'll be equally happy with whatever we are blessed with.

Our "due date" is June 6th (or 7th?) -- but I don't put a lot of faith into due dates. It's just a guess, and babies rarely come on their due dates. I see it as more of a "birth month" - and we'll be adding our new baby sometime in June.

Here's a few pictures for you all.

^Where the line is, to the left, is right around where the baby is.. this was taken at 7 weeks and obviously the little baby is small. Heartbeat is at the bottom left. 

^Pretty self evident, here.. although again, not much to see yet.

^Again.. not much explanation needed. LOL 

And another ultrasound picture, this one was taken at 6 weeks. Not much to see yet, either =)

How your baby's growing: (9 weeks)

Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic "tail" is completely gone. Your baby's organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won't be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks. Her eyes are fully formed, but her eyelids are fused shut and won't open until 27 weeks. She has tiny earlobes, and her mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. The placenta is developed enough now to take over most of the critical job of producing hormones. Now that your baby's basic physiology is in place, she's poised for rapid weight gain.