Better Late Than Never

And now, without further ado (only 6 weeks late), we proudly present pictures from our little Beavlet's 18 week ultrasound!!!
Ain't he cute? We sure think so. Even the ultrasound tech said he was cute. She said she went a little nuts and printed more different shots for us than she does for most families because she couldn't pick out of all the good ones. That's right, devastatingly handsome already, just like his daddy. :-)

He was definitely ready for his close-up as well. I had a little chat with him in the car as we were leaving school and getting ready to go meet Jeff that day, I told him that we needed him to do two things: The first was to move his little body so that we could tell if he was a boy or a girl because lots and lots people were excited to find out. The second (and most important) was that we needed him to show us if there was anything wrong or anything he was going to need us to help him with either before he's born or right after so we would be prepared and know how to help him. So, fast forward to me laying on the table in the radiology department. I told the Tech that we wanted to know the gender so she didn't need to be careful to hide stuff, and it was a good thing because he showed us the goods right off the bat! She began by examining my placenta and the SECOND she moved over to him she said, "WOAH!!!" and moved the transducer away and said, "So... before we go any further, what do YOU think it is? Because baby's showing us!!!" She went through the ultrasound and snapped all sorts of pictures and everything looked good, and then she pointed out to us that (in addition to moving around like crazy all the danged time) he kept repeatedly opening and closing his little fist. "That's what you REALLY want to see!" She said enthusiastically, "That is a VERY good sign! Babies with severe chromosomal abnormalities will have their fists in little balls, so opening and closing his fist like that shows us that he's doing really well!" I was too relieved and excited at the time to realize that he was pretty much not only meeting my second request, but EXCEEDING it!!! He was going out of his way to show us that he was healthy! Bless his little heart!!! :-)

So, at the moment he is kicking the you-know-what out of me... but then, that is pretty much a regular occurrence. He is VERY active. I asked the doctor a week ago at our last check-up when I should start counting kicks. "Oh, you probably won't feel him move consistently enough until 28 weeks." I was thinking, "Really? You wanna bet?" Then she told me that I should look for ten kicks in two hours. Again, really? Ten in two hours? And FOUR WEEKS from now? You must be talking about someone else's baby because if he was moving that little I would start to worry. Daddy is quite proud of his Little Man (as he called him today), already an active boy. :-)

OK, that's it for now! More to come in the next few weeks, got an e-mail today that his furniture has arrived and is ready to pick up!!!!

Love to everyone,
Tori

Getting Going

OK, it's probably about time to get the ball rolling and get into the habit of posting on this blog, so that once our little Beavlet finally arrives, I will be more likely do to a good job of posting and sharing his life. We found out about a month ago that our Beavlet is a "he" and we are both over the moon. More important than that, he appeared to be a very healthy little guy. He's sure acting like it anyway, wiggling all over the place in there and thumpin' strong enough these days that Daddy can feel him move when he puts a hand on my belly.

The pregnancy has been going really, really well so far, I can't complain. I had the usual fatigue and nausea in the first trimester and then some unexpected and pretty hard-core fatigue for the first few weeks of the second trimester, but adding a bit of iron REALLY helped out. I'm still more tired than I would be if I weren't pregnant and my back bothers me every now and again (and today would be one of those "now" days), but it's nothing I can't handle. I'm healthy and he's healthy and I can't ask for any more than that!!!

I am most definitely showing, see below:
Friends, family, coworkers and husband all tell me regularly that I look great, look healthy, am not gaining anyplace but the belly, etc. I was thinking that potentially they could be "just saying that" until my mom said so, and if she says it then it MUST be true. :-)

Another exciting piece of news is that we have picked out the decor for his room! We were in Babies 'R' Us right after we found out we were pregnant and Jeff saw a high chair with a monkey on it and got all excited! "LOOK, HONEY!!! MONKEYS!!!" And that was it. Monkeys it is. We looked at lots of different bedding patterns, and finally settled on this one:
The actual turning of the guest room into the baby's room will happen over winter break in December and I'm chomping at the bit. :-)

OK... I think that's it for now... of course I have more I could share, but that's a lot for one post! As soon as I can figure out where my thumb drive is, I will scan in his ultrasound pics to share. They are super cute, he's adorable already.

Love,
Tori