29 Week Appointment

So good news continues here....

1. I no longer have placenta previa. The placenta has moved to where it should be so that's no longer a concern for my delivery.

2. I tested negative for pregnancy (gestational) diabetes.

3. Chris was able to feel Nathan kick for the first time yesterday!

4. I got a flu shot to hopefully prevent from me getting any bad cold/flu from my students.

I feel like Chris, Nathan, and I have been blessed with how well my pregnancy has been going. Nathan and I have been healthy and the pregnancy has been pretty uneventful until this point. I just can't be thankful enough for that.

I go to the doctor every 3 weeks now until the last month when I go every week. I'm sure the updates won't be too exciting from here on out. I've already been tested for everything I'll be tested for, so the only thing will be his weight to keep up with.

I will post if anything new comes along! Otherwise, wish me luck on the last couple weeks I have left until Nathan arrives!!

P.S. We will have a mass text list that will be sent from one of our hospital waiting room guests (Mary, Fred, Heather). They will be using my phone and texting updates from when I go into labor until Nathan arrives. They will update you all as much and as often as possible assuming they are getting information from Chris, the doctor, nurses, or me from the delivery room. I guess it depends on how eventful the labor/delivery are. But please go ahead and contact me with any questions, comments, and our waiting room guests will answer you.

Love you all!

It's a BOY!!!

Let me introduce to you Nathan Frederick! Yes, after the past several weeks convinced IT was a she and being satisfied with our girl name we had to finally come to heads with what name we wanted to stick with. Chris and I had previously liked the name William Frederick and recently I came up with the name Nathan Alexander which I really liked. We decided to do a combination of the two deciding on the final name Nathan Frederick. As many of you know Chris' father's name is Fred or Frederick. Chris wanted his father's name to be incorporated somehow and I liked Nathan and it's possible nicknames aka Nate better than William and it's possible nicknames aka Willy, Bill, Billy, and Will. I actually really like the name Will but may have lost it on anyone who ever tried calling my son Willy or Bill.

So now I can finally finish my baby registry and work on ideas for the nursery. I had my heart set on some sort of a beach theme whether it was a boy or a girl. I just wanted to take the beach theme different avenues. I need to begin actively looking at ideas and what's out there.

I am so excited! I am especially excited for Chris! I think that our son will be like a mini-me of Chris and to be honest I think Chris will love all of the daddy attention :) Chris will have someone to teach to play ball, watch sporting events, go fishing, tease, pick on, and all of those other Daddy/Son things. I just can't wait to see their bond develop and grow. It will be such a special relationship. I am personally excited about having my first born be a male who will love and protect me with all of his heart. And knowing that he'll be Chris' son he'll make sure to look out for all of my other future children, his siblings.

Nathan is very healthy. We have completed additional testing just to give Chris and I more insight and information about our baby. All of the testing came back very positive. They can't give you a YES or NO whether your baby has specific disorders but they give you a percentage. The fraction given to someone in my age category is 1/1,000 for both Down Syndrome and other forms of mental retardation. After my testing Nathan's fraction went down to 1/10,000 chance of having Down's or another form of mental retardation. That is the lowest percentage you can get or the furthest away from Yes than we could have asked for. We are very thankful that the tests came back positive.

There was one slight complication on my end. It does not affect the baby at all but could cause some unexpected changes in our ideal delivery situation. My placenta is slightly covering the opening of my cervix (where the baby comes out). As everything grows over the course of the next couple of months there is a chance that the placenta will shift and move away from my cervix. The problem is that if it does not move and I go into labor the placenta would block the baby from exiting my body. They can not deliver the placenta first because the baby would lose it's nutrients. What this means for me is that if it does not move that I will have to deliver through C-section rather than vaginally. Of course I'd like to deliver vaginally but if it's the best for both the baby and I than of course that's what we will do. Typically, yesterday would have been my last ultrasound but due to this possible complication I will have another ultrasound between 28-30 weeks. At that time they will be able to see if the placenta has moved enough to allow for a natural delivery or if we need to take other precautions.

Here's the baby looking right at you. It's kind of a freaky picture. He's laying at a slight diagonal with his head to the upper left. Those two black spots are his eye sockets. You can also see his arm to the right of his body.

Here's the baby on his back. You are looking at him from the side. His head is on the left of the screen and those are his little feet above his stomach. He's in the reclined, feet up position :) I must be providing a nice little home in there!
Okay so I have a difficult time seeing this picture but I'll do my best at explaining it. This is where the ultrasound technician was able to distinguish between a boy or a girl. If you look at the arrow in the middle of the screen it's pointing towards Nathan's.... what do all of the mother's out there call it.....privates? His legs are coming up the the upper left diagonal of your screen. I think he must have been in motion because it's a little sloppy and blurry to me. But you get the point, right?
Here's his heartbeat. I know it's much more exciting to hear than see but his heart rate is 145bpm. This is in the normal range for a baby Nathan's age.

All of his other organs were checked and look good! Everything is pumping blood and functioning as expected. So thankful!!!

Cystic Fibrosis

I forgot that I never announced about recessive disorders like Cystic Fibrosis. I am NOT a carrier for any of the recessive disorders they primarily test for; therefore, there is not possible way that our baby will be affected. Even if Chris is a carrier the baby could also be a carrier but will not be affected. YAY!!! Good news :)

2nd Ultrasound

Well the baby is coming along! At our last ultrasound the baby was 1 week behind in growth. Now, our baby is 2 days behind in growth. So, it's catching up to speed. Today's ultrasound was to measure our risk for Down's Syndrome, some heart defects, and other chromosomal defects. This is an optional test that Chris and I decided we wanted to go through. Not that it would change our mind on having the child but it would allow us to prepare for a different lifestyle than expected. This test takes about a month to get back completely however, one of the BIG factors is the neck fat of the baby. The measurement at which point the doctor's have concern and begin doing additional testing is when it measures at 3. Our baby's neck fat measured at 1.3; therefore, the doctor was very optimistic about the rare likelihood that our risk factor would be high. He felt like with that low of a number that we should feel fairly confident in the risk percentage. If you compare the pictures of this stage of the baby compared to the last photos our baby looks less like a rodent and more like a BABY!!! This has been such an exciting experience.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty good. The all-day sickness continued until just this past week or so but thank goodness I'm very blessed I never actually got sick. Just felt like it! Now I'm feeling GOOD!! I feel like maybe too good. I've gotten my energy levels back, I feel good to eat, I'm back to exercising, and my moodiness has seemed to tone down (Chris may not agree with the last comment).

We find out the sex on July 12th! That will be the next big post. We will also know the final risk likelihood for the baby at that point too. Look for a big post on that day! We plan on getting a 3d and 4d ultrasound performed in August. Thank you for all of your continued support! Love you all!

The heartbeat is down at the bottom. The baby is tilted with its head lower down to the diagonal right while it's feet are up towards the diagonal left.

Here's the baby's profile. So, who does it look like Chris or me?? The baby is looking up. See it's chin, nose, and eye sockets?

Here's the baby laying very similarly to the 1st ultrasound. It's head is to the right and it's laying on it's back.

1st Ultrasound

Yesterday was my 1st Ultrasound! How very exciting!!! Chris and I went to the doctor and were able to experience the new events of being parents. The baby is about the size of a peanut right now. I'm 8 weeks and 4 days. A week behind than what I had originally thought. The baby's brain and size is developing on track. It's heartbeat is perfect too! It was 167 bpm and it is suppose to be 166 bpm so we were good! We got pictures of course that we will post as soon as we get them scanned in.

Oddly enough this was the first time meeting my doctor. I had been going to one doctor who we found out late last year that he only delivers to a hospital which very far away from our home. So, through recommendations I switched doctors and clinics. I had an appointment with one doctor at this new clinic who was fine but not crazy about him. Then after finding out I was pregnant my first priority was scheduling an appointment in which Chris could come. As you know with Chris' work schedule and my work schedule now it's difficult to find a time that we can both attend. Because of this I took some other recommendations and switched to a doctor who wasn't only recommended, at this clinic that I like, delivers to the hospital closest to us, and had an appointment available for our times/dates. BOTTOM LINE: Chris and I both really liked our doctor. He was very personable and easy to talk to!

I had some blood drawn to determine some medical conditions about me and the baby. I expect to get that back in about a week. I'm hoping that I am negative for Cystic Fibrosis. If I am not a carrier then there is no possible way that our baby could have it. If I am a carrier Chris will be tested. If he's a carrier than there is a 1 in 4 chance that our baby will have it.

At week 12 which is June 4th I will go back for another check up and a series of tests to find out about Downs Syndrome. We decided we want to test just to have the knowledge. The problem with Down's testing is that there not definitive. Meaning they can say yes it looks like your baby might have Down's when in fact it ends up being completely normal. So, we decided to do this test and hopefully we will be very low risk patients due to our health and age.

I'll update you after my blood results come back!

But overall so far so GOOD!!

This primarily is showing it's heartbeat down at the bottom. The baby is that little rodent like thing in the middle of the black area.

The baby's on it's back. It's head is on the right. That black spot in it's head it the brain.

Similar to the first one the rodent like thing in the middle of the black circle below the BABY! is the baby.

6 Weeks

I am 6 weeks today.

I find this very amusing so I would like to share. This week's major developments: the nose, mouth, and ears begin to take shape. My baby's eyes and nostrils are starting to form. His/her emerging ears are marked by small depressions on the sides of the head, and his/her arms and legs by protruding buds. His/her heart is beating about 100 to 160 times a minute — almost twice as fast as mine. His/her intestines are developing, and the bud of tissue that will give rise to his/her lungs has appeared. His/her pituitary gland is forming, as are the rest of his/her brain, muscles, and bones. Right now, the baby is a quarter of an inch long, about the size of a lentil bean.

We're Pregnant

Saturday, April 10th was quite an exciting day. As most of you know Chris and I have been trying for about a year now to expand our family. It's been a lot of negative pregnancy tests and questionable doctor's visits. Finally, when we stopped counting the days and relaxed whaaalaa! Prego! At this point I am 5 weeks along and according to a handy dandy website Chris found with a prego calculator I'll be due 12-11-10. Doctor's visit is planed for the first week of May when I'll be 8 weeks. More details I'm sure will follow after that appointment. We will have our first ultrasound at that point which will be very exciting for the three of us.

So one question I've received a lot is how are you feeling? Last Sunday through Wednesday I felt pretty crumby, loss of appetite and upset stomach. Thursday, Friday, and today I've felt great besides my major fatigue. My energy level is way below my norm and when 4:00pm rolls around the yawns begin. I'm feeling pretty good though. Sometimes I question if I'm feeling too good to be pregnant. I think until I have the ultrasound I won't be satisfied with 4 positive pregnancy tests.

Please pray for Chris, my lima bean size baby, and me throughout this pregnancy. I know how likely miscarriages are and I am trying to do everything in my power to not suffer that tragedy; however, I will not have any shame if that's what God's choice is for our unborn child. I feel very blessed at this point in my life. I am excited for what the future holds. Thanks for all of the kinds words of hope and positive encouragement.