More pictures of our little man

Today we volunteered to have an ultrasound at a local community college. Basically, it's when a medical student "practices" a scan on you with an instructor. In other words, you sit through an hour of baby's legs, femurs, belly, spine, brain, liver, bladder, kidneys, etc and at the very end they give you a few minutes of 3D action.

Both the technician and instructor thanked us over and over again for such a perfect ultrasound. Apparently Lil' J was very cooperative and the images she took were of textbook quality. Both ladies confirmed that J is indeed a boy, or as the technician put it "a little man." It would seem that J is appearing somewhat large these days... The ladies also commented on his "huge thighs" and "chubby cheeks." What can I say, I feed him well.
This is J playing shy, like his Mama. He's hiding his face behind his right arm.



Dismally, J's cooperative spirit did not carry over into 3D portion of the ultrasound, thus the not-so-good pictures we have here. Despite all our jiggling and twisting, J's face remained facing back towards my spine, both his hands were in front of his face, and the umbilical cord was in front of his nose. So sadly, these were the best images we could get. They might be a little hard to figure out, I think they look better when you take a few steps back. For most of them, it's a side profile picture of the right side of his face. And no he does not have a huge nose, that's just the cord.

Our little spunk kept kicking the wand but now Mama knows exactly what all that bumping and knocking is under her right ribs, and what's been keeping me from bending forward. So we just wanted to share pictures of our beautiful son with you all, now it's off to pack for a weekend trip home to PA!

Childproofing

In just a few short hours Handsome Coastie's sister, her husband and four little boys will be here to visit for 11 days!! We've just finished making beds, stocking up on kiddie foods and hiding every valuable or deadly item in the house. These next few days are going to be full of fun, energy and good practice for us parents-to-be!

Also this week I've been slammed with twice as many school assignments while still trying to work between two jobs. It's been a challenging June and all this busy-ness had made the time fly by. This Friday I'll be 6 months pregnant and not much more prepared than I was 2 months ago. Thankfully hubby took me out on a romantic date for my birthday at Salacia, where we had seaside seating on the verenda. The candlelight, salmon and salty air were a perfect change of pace from baby registries, curriculum projects and prospect databases.

Today J and I had our monthly check-up and things are lookin' good. In fact, J is actually measuring slightly ahead of his due date, and surprisingly, mom's belly is measuring slightly bigger than her weeks. Looks like J might be an over-achiever. His heartrate is the same as always, but that's just because he's consistent like his parents. :) With 4 months to go (give or take a week or two) baby-daddy and I are planning out a nursery and still discussing names.

Baby, baby you put my heart in motion

Sorry, but after today's doctors appointment, I just couldn't resist bringing up this early nineties "hit." This morning I got to hear Baby J's heartbeat! It was so fun! A strong whoosh, whoosh sound ringing in somewhere in the 150 bpm range. According to old wives tale and http://www.babybpm.com/, this is slightly on the slower end of heart rates for my gestational age, which would indicate baby is a boy. But you never know with those things. It was a very short doctor's visit, just like this post, because it's my last week of class and I've got finals to work on. Just wanted to let everyone know that baby has a heartbeat and mama has heartburn!!

The Highly-Anticipated First Appointment

My request for a civilian obstetrician was over-rode resulting in a referral to the local Naval Hospital. By local I mean 40 minutes of heavy traffic, one tunnel and one drawbridge away.
I managed to still get to my first appointment a few minutes early, which was good since I had to park on the 5th and top level of the parking garage and the find my way through buildings 1 and 2, to reach the 4th floor of building 3 and find the doctor's office. After a short wait I then heard that my trip that day was actually not for a doctor's appointment, but rather for new baby orientation and a meeting with a nurse. So first was a 30 minute slideshow educating those of us in the room on our first pregnancy, followed by three videos detailing the first, second and third trimesters.
The office was understaffed that day, so we were all forewarned that it might take some extra time for us to each get called back to meet with a nurse. In the meantime, we were being entertained by trimester one. Thirty minutes later trimester one ended and, without a nurse to put in the next video, we were only entertained by a blank movie screen. At this point the remaining mothers-to-be began nodding off in their seats for some much needed naptime.
Of course, I was the last to be called. For the next 10 minutes, Nurse Shirley referred to me as "'Lil Mama" and took my weight and medical history. Then she sent me down to the first floor lab for some tests and a reminder to arrive with a full bladder. Like that would be difficult- being pregnant and trapped in a waiting room for 3 hours. Nearly 4 hours after my initial arrival, I was finally able to wrap up my visit with some bloodwork. I made the mistake of handing her the wrong arm, the one with the hidden vein. So she dug around with a needle for a while, finally hit something right, and proceeded to withdraw bood. Unfortunately, she didn't choose the most productive vein and after an eternal 60 seconds, we both realized neither of us had the time to wait until the next 8 vials were filled. So the blood-sucking nurse profusely apologized and proceeded to stab the next arm.
At this point, it has been over 5 hours since my last meal and, as I had failed to bring along a snack, I was starting to feel the lack of nourishment. Fortunately, this arm was much more compliant and we were able to get all the vials full before the darkness started creeping into the corners of my eyes and my entire body broke out into a cold sweat. And so, although Nurse-Stabs-A-Lot may not be very fast at drawing blood, she sure is fast at retrieving snacks. Next thing I knew I was chugging some cranberry juice and cramming down a Kudos bar. A minute or two later I was able to walk out, head held high, with wobbly legs and shaky hands clutching what was left of my cranberry juice.
And so ends the world's most anti-climactic first appointment.