February 18th Appointment Update

Our appointment last Thursday went incredibly well and incredibly fast. It took me about 15 minutes to walk to my car, drive to Sarah's building, park, and get to her office. Our appointment maybe lasted 10 minutes. Maybe. It was probably closer to 5. Then it took me 30 minutes to drive back to park next to my building. Thank you, Obama, for having your speech right down the street from my office. People were everywhere and they were all driving like idiots. As Sir Charles would say, "Trrrrble".

During the appointment, the doc checked out Carlosa's heart rate (105 or so, which is good) and checked out the size of Sarah's stomach (all good here, too). He asked us if we had any questions and that was that. It is bizarre that it was so fast, but it is much better than having any reason to stay much longer.

On the nursery front, we cleared out more stuff out of the room. It is amazing how much stuff has collected in that room for the last 6 months or so. Crazy. It is almost ready for the paint to fly. We did take the window valence into Home Depot to pick a paint color. Yes, it is pink. And yes, it is my favorite color. We need some color in the room for a couple reasons. First of all, the room is south facing, so it gets a fair amount of light which brightens the room. Secondly, the bedding that we got is white with touches of pink and brown on it. We need some color on the walls to make sure the whole room doesn't get washed out. Our focus the next couple of weeks will be to clear out all the crap, paint the room, and find the furniture to put in it. This Friday is week 23 already. The weeks are slipping away; time to do work, son!

I need to thank my wife for something that is very near and dear to my heart. After 2.5 hours of walking around Babies R Us (during the Super Bowl, nonetheless!), we had to decide what diaper bag we wanted to register for. The daunting wall of pink floral patterns assaulted my eyes. The weariness from the registering process and the over-stimulation of the giant wall of pink almost pushed me to tears. As I hung my head to regain my composure, a dot of black caught my eye. It was glorious - a black Columbia messenger bag with no other colors besides the white of the Columbia logo. The awesomeness of this simple bag pierced through all my nightmares about pink and purple diaper purses and gave me hope. I just needed to convince the wife. . . I don't know if it was because she was tired or because she just really needed to pee, but Sarah quickly and painlessly agreed with my choice. We scanned the bag and headed back to the registry desk. Thank you, Sarah, for not forcing the prettiest bag on the shelf on your husband.

Til the next post,
Mikey

Carlosa Moves!

Last night was finally the night that Carlosa let me feel her move. Sarah has been feeling her jump around, jump up, jump up, and get down for a while now. She has been really good about calling me over when Carlosa is particularly active. Without fail, Carlosa would stop moving right before I stuck my hand on Sarah's stomach. Last night, Carlosa was particularly active as we were laying in bed. I put my hand on Sarah's stomach and waited. Of course, she stopped moving. After a couple minutes, I finally something rub along my hand. So freaking cool. After another couple minutes, I felt Sarah's stomach spasm. I looked at Sarah to see if that was her or Carlosa. Apparently, Carlosa decided to flip around and it shook Sarah's entire belly. This baby is going to be a bundle of pure energy. I can't wait.

We have a doctor's appointment this afternoon, so there will probably be an update after that.

- Mikey

Carlos is a Carlosa

Last Wednesday, we had our 18-20 week ultrasound, ours just happened to be at 17.5 weeks. All week we had been anxious because this is the ultrasound at which you can most likely determine the sex of your baby. Since we are in the works of getting the upstairs bedroom ready to be turned into a nursery, it was pretty cool to figure out which color scheme we would be choosing. Early in the pregnancy, Sarah had a dream that we were having a girl. We also thought that it might be a girl because we were in agreement for boys names. Girls names? Not even close. Naturally, you never get the easy one!

Everyone has been asking why our ultrasound was so early as typically these ultrasounds are conducted between 18 and 22 weeks. We had several discussions about our family history with the OB/GYN, the NP, and the genetic counselor at KP. All indicated that the presence of a few developmental problems in my family were reason enough to take an aggressive approach to screening the baby's health. All this meant was that Sarah had to get blood drawn a couple extra times and we had an earlier and more involved ultrasound. This more involved ultrasound included the presence of a perinatologist whose purpose was to keep a close eye on the ultrasound. 

Back at the appointment, we went into the ultrasound room. We had the perinatologist, an ultrasound tech, a nurse, Sarah, myself, and some other nurse that just popped in for a while. We were glued to the monitor as the tech started flying through all the different views and measurements. I honestly had a hard time keeping up with all the stuff they were looking at and measuring. Thankfully, the perinatologist was using his laser pointer to point out things as the image changed. After lots of body parts being called out and measured, the doc asked if we wanted to know the sex. He told us congratulations, you are having a girl (laser pointer pointed appropriately). Carlosa it is! They printed out some images, the doctor ensured us that he'd "never seen a baby grow a weinie after 18 weeks", and we were on our way. As far as he could tell, there were no developmental issues with little Carlosa. She was healthy and growing exactly how she should be growing.

Regardless of how much you prepare yourself and how much your medically-trained wife tells you about the low percentages of risk for your child, there is no way to describe how relieving it was to hear and see that our little girl was healthy. She was a whopping 8 oz and 5 inches from tip to tail. Hopefully her activity level in utero is indicative of how much energy she will have. Both ultrasounds and both doppler readings have resulted in the tech having to chase her around the womb a bit. High energy = fun for Daddy.

Here are the pictures of little Carlosa with the doctor's notes below them.

 

 

 

 

By the way, Sarah says that she is totally creeped out by the fact that her uterus is on the internet!

Til the next post,
Mikey

Second Trimester Is Where It Is At

So we are officially 17 weeks as of Friday the 15th. According to www.babycenter.com:

Your baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and they are around 5 inches long from head to bottom. It's amazing how fast they grow and how fast this has gone.

The first trimester was rough. People who love being pregnant are crazy. Being tired was one thing but the barfing was a whole other ball game. Everyone kept saying it would stop around 10 weeks. Well 10 weeks came and went, 12 weeks, and then 14. I was one day short of being 15 weeks and the barfing finally stopped. So I have to say the second trimester is where it is at. Energy is back, barfing has stopped, nausea has not stopped but is better.

During the second trimester I have gone back to the gym. I have pretty much eliminated running because I feel like Chunk doing the truffle shuffle with all the extra fluid in my stomach. So jogging, elliptical, and stairs is about all I can do.

It's scary to think we will know "hamburger buns or hotdog" this week. Everyone says the mom gets a vibe about it. Early in the pregnancy I was set it was a girl. Now I am not so sure. Guess we will find out very soon.

Too-da-loo!
Sarah

Carlos? Or is it Arkansas? Maybe Squirt? How about Herman?

After some prompting from some people who we will not name (Vicki and Natalie), we have finally created a baby blog. Hopefully we will be able to keep you updated on all the news, updates, and happenings as we go through the remainder of the pregnancy. And away we go!

As of yesterday (Friday, January 15th), we are at 17 weeks. It is hard to believe that we are nearing the half way point. The first half has gone way faster than I would have imagined. It has been a crazy few weeks and we are super excited about the little baby!

Keep checking back as Sarah and I will both be updating this thing. Hopefully it goes a little better than my blog (which gets updated once every blue moon).

Til the next post,
Mikey