Baby Acrobatics

We had a very exciting morning today. I've been feeling Aidan kicking for a few weeks now and occasionally when I'm lying down, he's kicked hard enough that I could feel it on the outside of my belly. Well this morning he started up, so I had Ian come over and put his hand on my belly, and wouldn't you know it, but within a minute Aidan was kicking up a storm and Ian felt Aidan for the very first time! He must have been doing sommersaults or something in there, b/c he kept up his performance for his daddy for a couple minutes! It was such a amazing experience for both of us.

21 Weeks 3 days - Reassuring News

Today I had my appt at Phoenix Perinatal Associates (the specialist my OB referred me to) about the two vessel umbilical cord. My appt went very well. They did a very indepth U/S and determined that Aidan's development is 100% normal for this stage in the game! According to the doctor he's a "primo little baby". His heart, kidneys, stomach, etc looked really good. The Dr checked his septum (the wall between his heart chambers) to make sure there were no holes. All his measurements came back normal and he is 14 oz which is right on target with how far along I am. So we are very relieved that the umbilical cord hasn't caused any complications at this point. I'll go back to the specialist at 32-34 weeks so they can check on his growth and I'll continue to be monitored by my own Dr every 4 weeks. He was very active today and was wiggling the whole time they were doing the ultrasound. I left the office today feeling very reassured that our little boy is doing great and is healthy. Here's a few new pictures that they took today. They even did some 3D pictures and a 4D video so you can see him wiggling around in there!

Our little boy is camera shy!

Aidan's perfect little spine

I love profile shots! There used to be a time his whole body could fit in the frame!! Now it's just his head and upper body!

All of Aidan's limbs are present and accounted for!

Aidan's 1st Video!

Happy Holidays!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday! We had Ian's squad over early this week for a holiday party and had a great time! Yesterday we went christmas shopping and got a new car! We got a really good deal and we love it! It's a dark red Acura MDX and it's fully loaded! Aidan's going to be spoiled with his "1st" car. The best thing is that it does have the third row, so it will be able to "grow" with our family as it grows! Now we just need to sell the truck and we'll be set! So if you know anyone who needs a truck... send them our way!

Ian will be working tonight (someone's got to pay for the car), but then he has Christmas off. I'll visit with friends for the evening and then tomorrow I'll cook us a nice Ham dinner for Christmas (thanks Mom!) and we'll spend a quiet day at home!In baby news, I'm finally starting to show a bit more, so I've uploaded some new pictures for all of you! I'm feeling good, and will be anxious to get my appt at the perinatologist over and done with on Monday.

20 Weeks 6 Days

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!!

20 Weeks and Counting

Well today I had my 20 week ultrasound and appointment. Overall it went well and we got tons of pics. Most of the,m are pretty blurry though, so I just chose a couple to share. Aidan is measuring great, all of his organs are developing as they should be. We got information on all kinds of fun stuff like breast feeding, pacifiers, etc. Gotta love the Dr we saw today, she's awesome and just tells it like it is (or at least how she sees it! But at least we have similar views!)

However they did discover that the umbical cord which is normally three vessels is only two. Our Dr explained that because Aidan's development is great and right on where it should be, at this point it shouldn't be a worry. They will closely monitor his growth (which means lots more ultrasounds), because I guess that can be affected by a two vessel umbilical cord. In the meantime they are referring me to a perinatal specialist where they will do some more in depth ultrasounds to see what's going on and to confirm that there aren't any indicators that there are more serious issues or complications. So keep your fingers crossed for our little boy! Our appt with the perinatologist is December 29th, so I'll post more once we have some more info then.

All that being said, he was a very active little boy today. The tech had a hard time getting shots of him because he was being such a wiggle worm. So according to the Dr that was a really good thing! :)

Caution! Wet Floor!

Well just to give everyone a quick update. On Thursday I slipped at school. Not bad or anything (just a sore bottom, good thing I have some cushion there!!), but just as a precaution I went in to my Dr office yesterday. Everything is fine. They checked my blood pressure which was fine and Aidan's heartbeat was a healthy 155 beats per minute. We could hear him moving around in there and the nurse said she could feel him moving too. So all is good!

Shopping!

Let the shopping fun begin!!! Here's a few of our first "boy" clothing items! I can't wait to get more!!! Uh oh... maybe finding out we're having a boy already wasn't such a great thing!! Now I don't have a reason not to shop! LOL!

Meet Aidan Tyler!

Gotta love the bottoms up view!!

From the top looking down..


What a cooperative baby! Giving us all these great shots!! :)

We have some exciting news! We are so happy to announce that we are having a baby boy! If you look a the pictures above you can definitely see that he has a hot dog!! So how did all of this come about you ask? Well I was talking to my friend, Ann, about a place that will do gender ultrasounds for only $50. So I looked them up on the internet and decided to give them a call this morning. Ifigured that if they could get me in today it was meant to be, and if not, then we'd just wait until the appt on the 18th. Well low and behold, they got me in at 1:30 this afternoon. Ian was working but was able to get away for a few minutes. She was able to tell right away that it was a boy and we couldn't be more pleased than to finally put a name to our "Lil Bean"! And we admit it, we are totally thrilled about having a boy!!! I still have my ultrasound and appt on the 18th of December, so we'll have more pictures to upload then! Hopefully, Aidan will be cooperative and we can get some good profile shots of him! Although Ian says no more "porno" shots of the baby!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and evening spent at our friends', Lisa and Harry, house. And in honor of stuffed turkeys and tomorrow being the start of Week 17 and my 5th month of pregnancy, here's a new baby bump picture! Hopefully no one confuses me with a stuffed turkey! ;)

Hard to believe my kiddos at school still haven't guessed that I'm pregnant! They just think I'm getting chubby! Oh, and ignore my head being cut off, I have established that my husband is not ever going to be a professional photographer!

You know, I used to think that time was moving so slowly, and it just amazes me that I am going into the 5th month and am only a few weeks shy of being half way through.

What was that?

Today I was sitting at a desk in the workroom at school and I felt the baby move! It was the coolest feeling. I was sitting there cutting out Thanksgiving placements for the kiddos and all of a sudden I felt this little push from inside!! And I know it wasn't gas! ;) I can't wait to feel it more and it will be even more awesome when Ian can feel it too!

Family News!

I have some exciting news! We are really pleased to share that my brother, Jimmy, and his wife, Christine, are also expecting! So two new babies will be joining our families this summer! How exciting for all of us to be able to go through this together. They've also started a blog, so be sure to check it out to see what's going on with them and their new journey!!

16 weeks!

Well, today I had my 16 week doctor's appointment. Everything went well. We heard the heartbeat on the doppler, although that was a bit of a challenge since the baby was busy hiding! Apparently there is an artery nearby and the baby was hiding behind that so all we could hear for awhile was my own heartbeat until the baby finally moved! That was neat because you can hear the movement on the doppler too! It sounds kind of like paper being crinkled. The baby's heartbeat is 142 beats per minute and everything else was fine too. No swollen ankels yet or anything. My next appt is on December 18 and that is when we'll have the ultrasound to see what the baby is. I tried to get in earlier, but apparently there are developmental measurements that they need to take and it is better to get these done at 20 weeks than 18. So what's 2 more weeks right? It only feels like eternity!

Can you see what I see?

Not quite (especially since the eyelids are still fused shut)... but get this... if I put a flashlight up to my stomach, the baby can actually sense the light and will move away from it... Now that's kinda weird!!

Can you hear what I hear?

Well apparently the baby can! Starting this week, the bean can hear!! So my book says to start singing to the baby and that they can actually recognize words and songs after they are born... Poor thing... it's going to have to live through a lifetime of hearing his or her tone deaf mother singing, and it doesn't even get a break in the womb!!

Well I have my 16 week appt this week on Friday and I'll find out when our gender U/S is going to happen. So hopefully it will be sometime in the next two weeks and we'll finally have an answer to that intriguing question... are you a baby girl or a baby boy hiding away in there?!

Finally a baby bump!

So just thought some of you might like to see the bump starting to emerge!! I'm getting harassed at school because I don't "look" pregnant yet. So here's my proof! The first picture was taken at just about 6 weeks back on Sept 10th. The next two pictures were taken this weekend after we got home from a wedding and were taken at 14 weeks. FYI... Ian said I looked too cheesy when I was smiling in the 2nd picture, so that's why I look all grumpy in the last picture.

And just to update everyone... I'm oficially out of the 1st trimester. I'm feeling good, except for coming down with a cold this weekend. But managed to completely escape morning sickness, and am hoping to start getting some energy back!

Marine Corps Ball

We went to the Marine Corps Ball yesterday. I had a few moments of panic a few weeks ago when I found out I wouldn't be able to get my hair done at my hair stylists b/c she was out of the salon at a wedding for the day. But I asked my friend Amanda at school if she would be willing, and she did an awesome job! By the time we were both finished getting ready, both Ian and I looked pretty spiffy if I do say so myself! :)

We had a great time sitting with Ian's friends at military and I didn't even mind not being able to drink. The Ball was at the Ft McDowell Casino for the second year in a row, and again they did a great job. The food was good and it looked like everyone was having a good time! After the Ball we walked over to the Casino to play some slots. Didn't walk away with any winnings though!! We stayed at the hotel and then drove home this afternoon. All in all, a very nice weekend, and it was especially nice to have Ian around on a weekend!!!

11 Weeks 6 Days

Well today I had my 12 week appt... just shy of 12 weeks! The ultrasound looked great and Ian was able to come too! We saw the baby and heard it's heartbeat. They did the 1st trimester screening, and so far, no problems! When the ultrasound tech first zoomed in on the bean, her first comment was that the baby was saluting! I got a little chuckle out of that. We were hoping that the bean would be moving around... but no... apparently we are having a LAZY baby, b/c no matter how many times the tech poked and tried to bounce the baby, it just kept on sleeping... I told Ian these were early signs the baby was going to be taking after him! :) The tech also tried to check for gender eventhough she told us it was unlikely she'd be able to tell. And here are the results.....

The bean is either a girl, or it was too early to tell if it is boy. So basically... it could still go either way! So I'm gonna say 50% chance it's a girl and 50% chance it's a boy! Ha Ha! All that being said, the tech said if she had to call it today, she'd say it was a girl... but no guarantee... So we'll just have to see. Ian asked her if she thought it was just cold "in there" and if that's why we couldn't tell. I gotta hand it to him, he comes up with some good ones every now and then! I have another ultrasound at 18-20 weeks, so we'll know for certain hopefully in 6 to 8 weeks.

Hmmm... what's new?

Well, I haven't been posted anything new in awhile, and that's because nothing new has been going on! Still feeling good... not sick at all... just tired. I'm starting to show a teeny tiny bit... so I need to have Ian start taking pictures so we can see my different stages of roundness!

Speaking of which I have a funny story to share... Last week at school I was talking to two of my rather brilliant girls whom I normally adore. And one of them asked if I had been using my Wii Fit lately (we were looking at the Scholastic Click catalogue to see what Wii games they had). So my response to that question was to ask a question of my own... "Does it look like I have been using my Wii Fit?" To which my other student responded, "Well, not really." At this point the student who asked the question reached out and poked my belly and said "Nope... not using it." At this point I called them both brats and sent them on their way to PE (which they had been stalling going to anyway). So it would seem the kiddos have noticed that the belly is getting rounder too! We'll see how long before they put 2 and 2 together. Anyway, that's my funny story.

Well I have my 12 week appt and ultrasound this week... so I am sure I'll have more to share on Thursday. We're just hoping Ian can get off work on time so he can go with. I got the strangest look from him the other day when I told him the baby was about an inch and a half and showed him how big it is... I think he's rather perplexed by the whole situation and he made some comment to the effect of me and the baby being aliens... Seriously though, he is excited and wants to see the ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. Maybe just maybe they'll be able to tell the gender too! I know, not likely, but one can hope!! Until Thursday...

Baby Names

You all know me and my need to have decisions made. So we have officially decided upon a boy's and a girl's name for the baby. If the baby is a girl, we have decided on Samantha Gillian and if it is a boy, we have decided on Aidan Tyler. We'll let you know as soon as we know, just which one it is going to be!

Finally my first OB appt and ultrasound

I am exactly 8 weeks today and here are our first pictures of the baby! Everything is going well and the baby's heartbeat was fine at 142 beats per minute. Dr said everything looked good and healthy! Hearing the heartbeat today was so awesome!! And seeing it beating was even cooler! Just this neat little flickering movement. They did adjust my due date back... so I am exactly 8 weeks today.

Just an Update

Well, I haven't really posted much. But not much new is really going on. Starting to get a little queasy from time to time, but that's about it. Last week we bought our travel system since it was on sale. So we are slowly starting to pick up some of the bigger things so that it won't be such a dent in the bank account later! We are starting to let family and friends know about our big news, so that has been a fun expereince. Will post more next week and will hopefully have some pictures form the ultrasound to post too!

1st appt

Well I had my first appointment on Tuesday. They started off with an US which was really cool, but a little frustrating too. Based on my LMP I should have been 5 weeks 5 days, but after the Ultrasound and they Dr determined that I must only be 4 weeks 6 days. So frustrating b/c they didn't see the baby yet, only the sack, because it is too early, and now I have to go back again in two more weeks. But so far things looking really well. My last HCG was over 3,400 and that was the Friday before my appt, and I don't remember my progesterone but was in the high 20's and I guess that was ok too. So we're keeping our fingers crossed!

A bun in the oven?

Well, we all know how impatient I am, so I took a test on Tuesday and Wednesday even though it was a few days early. Well they both came back positive! I went into the doctor on Thursday and we are officially pregnant! Yippee! I go back on Wednesday for more blood work and the following week at 5 weeks for my first appt and ultrasound! Exciting times are ahead. I am trying to stay cautiously optomistic. And Ian is very excited too!

2WW

Ok exciting times! We are officially in the two week wait! Next Friday I will be testing and hopefully we will get a positive pregnancy test!