21 weeks

and he kicked big time!

So last night while watching a movie snuggled up all cozy with paul and decker. I started to feel the third boy in my life move, I quickly grabbed paul's hand and placed it just over my belly button; and his face lit up as he felt our baby move in a big way!

It seems like this is the moment when the guy who will soon become a dad really starts to feel a connection. It made me smile so much to see his face light up. Then at bed time paul sang about 4 songs to the baby. I loved every minute of it.

21 weeks picture to come.....and the baby is now the size of a banana.

20 weeks, a week late

So let us say that this little post will be weeks19-20, 20-21.

So as of today I am 21 weeks (more than halfway, the crowd cheers). The baby today is at least the length of a banana, and around 12.75 something ounces.

Nothing too exciting to report, I continued to feeling some movement, but I'd always pictured and thought that you'd feel these immense jabs from the baby when it 'kicked' but thus far it has just been a gentle '"Hey, I am here". Until last night.

I was unable to sleep and so took a long luxurious bath which extended into the wee hours of this morning, and I suddenly felt some stronger movement. So I placed my hand on my belly and distinctly felt about six consecutive kicks from the inside out. It was so neat, and it let me know that maybe these stronger 'jabs' were indeed happening, only when I was sleeping and they were not quite strong enough to wake me just yet. I crawled into bed shortly thereafter and told Paul about it, but understandably he muttered something and promptly fell back asleep, I am so exited for when he will feel distinct movement beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I know he is as well.

This past weekend I went down to visit some friends for a birthday celebration, a tradition our group of 6 girls has had since we were around 14 years old(2 of us) and 16 years old (4 of the others) making our tradition of getting together to celebrate each others big days a decade long and running. I love these girls. They are my absolute best friends. One is currently completing her masters degree in California (I KNOW!) so she has been absent from a few birthdays, but we always feel her love from calls, texts, messages and postcards she sends. I am excited for when she comes back to Ontario (you better come back miss KRM!). Seeing this group always makes me laugh and miss them (as I live about 2 hours away now). And as I was getting ready to depart from the birthday celebrations on sunday I felt a distinct hard body part (shoulder, knee, head?) to the right of my belly button, it was so cute and a special moment as 4 tentative hands reached out to feel their pseudo-nephew. Bounce looked especially shocked by it and I loved being able to share those moments with my girls.

We're more than halfway and I can't wait to meet our little guy!
and I know that there are a lot of you out there waiting to meet him too!
love b

19 weeks

A mango! We've reached a mango from head to 'rump' (+legs).

And this week Paul felt one tiny kick at just the right moment, but since then not much else definitively (as he'd put it). Not much else has happened this week, other than me feeling that my entire body is molding into one giant blob. sigh. Oh well, it will all be worth it when he gets here.

that 80% thing....

So Paul and I were so excited to find out whether we'd be having a little lady or little man as our addition to our little family. Paul took friday off with some overtime and we slept in, prepped for the cottage and got ready for our big ultrasound.

Now if you've been following our blog (raisingarennick.blogspot.com) you would know that I fell last weekend on the glorious ice (and if you do follow our blog click on the bottom right hand commenty thing and let me know someone is reading it!) and had to have an ultrasound at the hospital to make sure everything was okay. And it was.

Once that was established I asked the technician of she had a guess of the gender, she said a BOY, but to wait another week until our gender ultrasound to be 100%, then I saw something on the screen and asked if it was a penis, she said it could be. So I told my kristy (who accompanied me to the hospital), paul and my mom. And no one else. and I suck at secrets. So i was excited for Friday, REALLY REALLY EXCITED.

So there we were, Friday, decker is ready to go, the car is packedfor the cottage and then we go in for our ultrasound, of which paul has only seen the baby at 8 weeks as a blob with a little heartbeat, so this was a big thing for paul too.

So during the ultrasound the baby looks huge to me HUGE, I ask how big it is measuring now (almost 13 cm from head to bum, plus legs, it was 6 cm the last time I saw it at 12 weeks, during the ultrasound we were measuring around 19 weeks). The baby is moving just slightly and we can see so much more than last time, which includes but not limited to :

a heart with 4 healthy valves
kidneys
stomach
ribcage
spine
brain hemispheres
femur
5 toes
5 fingers
and swallowing (paul was most excited by this as the baby seemed very content to just chill out for the time being)

After the required measurements are taken, she asks if we would like to know the gender, YES, TELL ME NOW. please. She says she doesn't know yet, but will look now for us. Paul and I hold our breaths, ready and she says "There is what could be a penis or a large part of the vagina." (pardon my use of the v and p word if it offends). WHAT?

Then the baby crosses its legs, sitting and crosslegged up in there for the next 15 minutes while she wholeheartedly tries to see for us BOY or GIRL? She can see that the baby is not moving, and is quite content, she tries some different angles, but eventually she has to say "The sac (pardon) has not yet dropped, so i can only say that I am 80% sure it is a BOY".

So that is it folks, we're 80% sure it is a boy, and 100% sure that everything is amazingly healthy and for that we could not be more thankful. And we'll be stocking up on some white sleepers (it will be august anyways when we know for sure for sure) And buying up boy clothes, but leaving tags and receipts with them, just in case.

Sorry if this not bored you, I am a first-time super excited mommy to be over here and that is that.

Boy or girl we will love you with everything we have to give.

Oh and Paul said to the ultrasound picture when she turned on the heartbeat for us to hear "Can you just come out now?" he is so excited.

18 week picture

my love and I

18 weeks

Paul playing wii while I try to take a belly pic, definitely a 2 person job.

flutters and a much bigger baby!

So today I am 18 weeks pregnant and starting my 5th month of pregnancy (the months and weeks don't seem to add up, but that is what the books say!) and the baby is about the size of a sweet potato.

It has been an interesting week. I started feeling something similar to flutters in my abdomen but wasn't quite sure if this was baby movement or something else. But I decided to go with baby movement as all of my stomach is now far above my belly button.

Let me just repeat for the record what an amazing thing the human body is. IT IS AMAZING.

And due to all this movement(the baby & my stomach) the heartburn was getting quite bad quite quickly. So I got a prescription for some heartburn medication and it has been such a relief! No more waking up in the night to horrible pain and being unable to get back to sleep.

This week I headed down to my old stomping grounds of Burlington to meet up with some of my oldest friends for a birthday dinner. It was fun and a great visit, but the headaches I've been having started that afternoon and stayed with me through until Saturday morning.

Then on Saturday morning I headed to Hamilton to help a friend move into her first place (so proud of you kr!). Though I did no lifting I still managed to hurt myself, I am just getting clumsier and clumsier. I was walking in her driveway and slipped on the ice and fell on my back. It hurt. I called telehealth due to some cramping that started immediately after and was advised to head to the hospital where after 5 hours of waiting (thanks for taking me KR!) I had an ultrasound which showed a much larger baby than what I'd seen at 12 weeks. The baby looked so crammed in and like it had no more room. Though I know room will soon be made. But the baby at first was quite still with a steady heartbeat, then the u/s technician left to double check something and I started feeling those 'flutters' and she came back and took some more u/s pics of my abdomen where I could clearly see the baby moving in time with what I was feeling as flutters. The u/s tech also gave me an early gender prediction, but we're waiting to confirm until this friday when we have our scheduled gender u/s.

So everyone is good and growing, though my belly seems to have shrunk from last week-pic to follow) and we're almost halfway there!