21 Weeks

Wow. 21 weeks! As many of you know, today was our anatomy ultrasound. Normally, this is the "big" one where you find out the gender; however, since we already knew about our little boy I just asked the woman to tell me if it turned out to be a girl. ;) Thankfully, after sometime, Xander revealed himself and proved himself to be all boy. Good. Things looks good (accding to the tech) but we need the doc's sign off on Saturday at our next appt. So I'll keep you all informed. But it was awesome to take such a close look at his brain and heart, etc.

A pic for you:

So, who does he look like?

This week:

"Chances are good you're feeling someone performing a round-off back handspring in your uterus by now. Is there any other feeling this cool? Other highlights this week:

By now your baby looks like a mini-version of what she'll look like when she's born. All her facial features are formed and hair is growing on her head. She's even acting like a baby and will occasionally suck her thumb or yawn. Aww ...

Baby's heartbeat is getting stronger and can be heard using a good old-fashioned stethoscope. [XANDER'S WAS 148BPM THIS MORNING] Ask for a listen at your next prenatal visit! By 21 weeks, fetal bone marrow starts making blood cells—previously done by the liver and spleen. This may not sound that exciting, but it's good news.

The amniotic fluid that has been cushioning your little bean now serves another purpose: Your baby uses it to "practice" chowing down. [WE SAW SOME IN HIS BELLY AND BLADDER -- ALL FUNCTIONING] Yes, it sounds gross (as many aspects of pregnancy do), but it's an important step for your baby toward being able to chow down in the real world. Your baby has been swallowing amniotic fluid for a while now, but now the intestines are finally developed enough that she's absorbing small amounts of sugars from it. And let's face it, being able to effectively digest sugar is important at every stage of life.

Your baby now weighs between 10 and 11 ounces [XANDER IS WEIGHING IN AT 15OZ] and is approximately 7 inches long—the size of a delicious, cold, frothy bottle of root beer. Float anyone?"

*3D Pregnancy

Baby H is ALL BOY!

There's no denying it! :) We officially confirmed that the little one joining our family come October will be Michael Alexander "Xander" Husband. We were able to get a couple of decent "money shots" (see below) even though the lil' guy seems to like to keep his legs crossed at his ankles. He also has great boxer technique and makes sure to always keep his face protected with his little fists. Must have learned that one from me since we have been going to boxing classes a couple times per week. ;)

We're super excited! And I'm even more excited to be able to (i) be confident in the nursery design and (ii) go buy a couple of lil' boy specific items tomorrow. Yay!

MONEY SHOT



DADDY's LONG LEGS!! :)

BIG SMILE! :)

Great news...NT Scan results

We got the call from the midwife this afternoon, and thankfully, all is well. Our Down's Syndrome risk is 1 in 9,441, and the trisonomy 18 and 23(?) risk is 1 in 16,461. Yay!

This feels like one more hurdle crossed for this pregnancy.

Oh boy! That was AWESOME!

So we had our NT Scan yesterday, which is part of the 1st Trimester Screening (testing the probability for Down's and two other chromosomal abnormalities). The total exam consists of a blood test (not bad, just a pin prick on the finger and then filling up 5 lil' dots on the paper with blood -- apparently I'm a "very good bleeder" -- nice!) and then the ultrasound! Our ultrasound tech, Kelly, was so friendly and really patient with showing us everything rather than just rushing through with her measurements (we were with her for an hour!). Apparently the two main things they're looking for during this exam, other than the normal stuff, are the amount of fluid behind the baby's neck and the existence of the nasal bone. We have to wait til the midwife gives us our results at the end of next week, but Kelly seemed to think all looked very good.

Baby H is still measuring right on track at 11w, 3d, just about 2 inches CRL (crown to rump length) and the lil' heartbeat was at 169bpm. It's so nice to know that all is going well in there!

Mike and I both really enjoyed the experience. He kept asking questions ("is that normal?" "what's that?" "um, why's the baby facing a different direction now -- are there TWO!?!"), which would set me into laughter and mess up the pic on the screen. Whoops! But, in the end, we got some great pics. We started with the normal 2d u/s and then switched over to the 3d and 4d u/s. 4d is actually real time video and is absolutely amazing. Baby H spent most of his time lounging back with his lil' ankles crossed but then started moving his little legs and stretching out. So cute!

A BIG surprise: you really aren't supposed to be able to tell the baby's sex until much later (about 16 weeks) even though by the end of the 11th week (from what I've read) the genitals are developed. We went in fully thinking there was no way we'd even get an educated guess at Baby H's gender (Mike had even asked me earlier that morning if we'd be able to, and I assured him he'd have to wait at least another month before we knew anything). Anyway, as we started looking at the 3d u/s things became much clearer (obviously), and Mike with his questions had to ask what a certain lil' something was on the baby. Kelly started laughing and said she was fairly certain that was a penis and scrotum. I was shocked! Not because I've been certain Baby H was a girl (so much for mother's intuition), but because she was even willing to make such a guess so early. After much doubtful questioning from me, she conceded that it is early but if the baby is well developed that they can occasionally tell early on with the new 3d/4d ultrasound equipment (that being said, she was so impressed by Baby H that she mentioned showing the pics to her co-workers for evidence of penis and scrotum between 11 and 12 weeks -- ha ha!). Anyway, she went on to start showing it to us and said she was actually pretty certain when she was looking at the 2d u/s that Baby H was a boy (she went back and showed us a couple of those pics and what she was showing us made sense). So long story short, we think Baby H is a boy; however, even Kelly said we should hold off telling people (yay right-- try keeping Mike quiet after 3 Jack and Cokes at the HH we went to last night!) and not buy any blue until the confirmation in about a month (absolutely!). But it's kind of exciting! As most of you know, Mike has been holding out hope for a little boy even though (so cliche) we both just really want a happy and healthy baby. So I'm happy that he's so happy! Ecstatic is more the word, and quite proud of the development (so far) of his lil' boy's boy parts...now let's hope Baby H doesn't turn out to be a girl. Ha ha!

I mentioned pics...She was more than generous and gave us 10! Awesome, right! I won't bore you with all of them, but here's quite a few. Enjoy!






xoxo-
Vicky