Baby Update. It's a...

We went to our 20-week ultrasound appointment yesterday. The ultrasound took a long time as the technician took all sorts of pictures from every possible angle so they can analyze the info and determine if there are any areas of concern. During our consultation afterwards, the doctor said that everything appeared normal and the baby is growing at exactly the right rate and, based on the summary paperwork he had at the time, he doesn’t have any concerns. He was going to be looking at the detailed pictures and info last night and said he would contact us if he noticed anything of concern. I am just overwhelmed at the goodness of God! That He would give us 2 beautiful children in Abby and Ryan, and then bless us with a healthy pregnancy too! It’s almost too much to grasp.

Oh, and I suppose you’re curious what the gender is. Baby would not open its legs during most of the ultrasound, and had its head stuck way down in my pelvis. It made it very difficult for the technician to get good pictures of the baby’s skull/brain, and to get a good shot of the gender. But finally, at the end, the baby moved and spread its legs apart, and we could see clearly that it is a GIRL!!!! It really didn’t matter to us whether it was a boy or a girl, since we have one of each already, but now that I know it’s a girl, I’m getting excited to meet her! We’re working on finalizing our name choice now. We may not share it until she is born. We’ll see.

Pregnancy Update: 18 weeks

A few people have asked how things are going, so here's the scoop: Overall I would never know I was pregnant. I feel great most of the time, have a normal amount of energy and am able to eat whatever I want without any aversions. Sometimes I notice a "hard spot" in my lower abdomen when I bend over to reach something on the floor, and things feel a little different when I roll over in bed, but otherwise I feel normal. I can wear most of my normal clothes, altho I've had to give up the jeans and slimmer skirts I was wearing on a regular basis and move into some larger ones I had put away. A lot of the time you'll find me in my exercise pants or a skirt or dress, since both of those are more comfortable to wear. It's hard to tell that I have much of a "baby bump" yet, but there is a little one there. I think I may have felt the baby move a few times in this past week, but since this is my first pregnancy, I'm not certain that what I'm feeling is baby or just tummy twitches. According to a weekly pregnancy update I receive, our baby is approx 5-1/2" long from head to rump, and weighs approx 7 oz.

I did have a MAJOR pain experience a couple weeks ago, which gave me a flavor of what CAN happen to my body during pregnancy. It was probably a cyst that burst (normal in pregnancy), or a round ligament stretching. The doctor didn't know for sure. Thankfully the pain subsided after about 24 hours, and went away completely after about 4 days.

We're looking forward to our 20-week ultrasound in a couple weeks. Yes, we will be finding out the gender of our baby, and yes we will tell you. We want to know for a couple reasons: simply to know (we're curious!...and excited!), and also we want to have a direction to focus on for naming purposes. We didn't have that luxury with Abby and Ryan since we found out about both of them the day after they were born, so this time we're going to take advantage of the extra time we have.

He's Rolling Now!

Last Thursday, Jan 7th, Randy went in to get Ryan up from his nap and found him laying on his back. That's NOT the position Randy put him in when he went down for his nap (he sleeps on his tummy)! So, we deduced that Ryan had rolled over for the first time. Then this morning I went in to get him up at 6am and found him on his back again! He'd been making (mostly happy) noises off and on since 3:30am, but we're trying to teach him to sleep thru the night again, so I did my best to ignore him until 6. My guess is that he rolled over at 3:30.

In other news...we went to the doctor last Monday for his 4 month appointment. He weighed in at 17 lbs 5 ozs (90th percentile), and was 26" long (75th percentile). He's a healthy boy and the doctor didn't have any complaints about him. His only suggestion was that he seems to be getting plenty to eat (you think??), and Mommy needs to get her sleep, so we should train him to sleep thru the night and skip the middle-of-the-night feeding he's been wanting/getting the last couple months.




We went down to Portland this past weekend and stayed with Randy's brother Jay and his wife Mandi. Randy was filling in for a pastor in Vancouver WA on Sunday, which is only 40 minutes from Jay and Mandi, so we took the opportunity to get away for the weekend and give Jay and Mandi some niece/nephew time. :) Abby did quite well the whole trip, but we found out that Ryan is NOT a great traveler. He cried/screamed way more than we wanted to hear on the way down on Friday. We assumed all kids sleep well in the car, so we kept him up as long as possible as we got ready on Friday morning and figured he would fall asleep and take a nice long nap as we drove. Nope. Not him! So on the way home Monday, we made sure he got his nap BEFORE we left Jay and Mandi's, which worked much better. He played with his toys in his carseat for a long time before finally dozing off to sleep, and had only a few crying spells.

Randy got to go to the Blazers/Lakers game with Jay on Friday night. It was a packed/sold out game, and Jay was very fortunate to get a seat for Randy (for free nonetheless! Thanks Jay!!). The Blazers beat the Lakers, which made everyone in our home happy. :) They got home somewhere around 1:30 a.m. after Jay did his postgame show and they did some grocery shopping for us.

Saturday night we took Jay and Mandi out to eat at Olive Garden while friends Darryl and Tana and their daughter Julianne watched Abby and Ryan for us. We had a great time, and they did too!

Now we're back home and getting into our normal routine. The kids were SO happy to be home! Abby ran in circles around our coffee table when she got in the house, and Ryan settled in very happily into his bed last night. It's a very satisfying feeling knowing that your kiddos are happy in their home!