Good use...

Between me and Ruby, the pregnany pillow is getting some good use!

What a day!

So...I tripped over the broom Monday and crashed onto the granite floor. Hard! Banged up my knee and had some cramping. I called the doctor and was put on bed rest. At 4 am, the cramping was getting worse. Then, the doctor wanted to see me. We listened to the baby's heartbeat (144 beats/minute) and did a couple other tests to make sure everything was okay. However, my abdomen and uterus were too tender for Dr. Anding's comfort and he admitted me to the hospital for heavy-duty tests. Long story short, everything is okay and I'm on bed rest until the end of the week. Here are a couple of photos from the 10,000th ultrasound we had:

Baby Mitchell was dancing and riding a bicycle the entire time. The doctor actually started laughing! I guess Baby was soon bored by it all..hence the huge yawn in the above photo. What a character!

Side story:

A few weeks ago Ben had a dream about the delivery. We had the baby and the nurse wouldn't tell us if it was a boy or a girl. She told Ben, "You didn't want to know, so I'm not going to tell you." But then she gave in and said it was a girl. Well......she was wrong....cause we found out last night that it's a BOY!!! For real this time!!!! See for yourself!!!

With the scare of the fall and a "second chance" ultrasound, I really wanted to found out. It seems to much more real to me now! Ben and Amanda are going to have a son! Lord, please help us!

19 weeks- pretty much half way!

Enough with the heartburn already! Come on! We should have bought stock in Mylanta Chewables (the tropical flavors)! While the morning sickness seems to be gone, my food tastes have gone haywire. I asked Ben to cook me eggs for dinner the other night only to take ONE bite and know instantly there was no way I could swallow it! The same thing happened with my turkey and cheese sandwich today! And this is the time when I should really be putting on some weight! We decided to have rice for dinner tomorrow night.

We spent the afternoon completing our registry at Babies R Us (we also did Pottery Barn Kids). Ben was having a great time until he needed to nap for a moment. He kept picking out a cute girlie outfit or a sweet boy item and I'd have to remind him we couldn't register for those kind of things since "we" didn't want to know the sex of the baby. :)

That's about it for now. We see the doctor again on April 24. Until then, I'll keep contemplating if that was a kick or just my stomach gurgling. And Ben will keep putting his ear to my belly listening for whatever it is he's listening!

It's alive....I think!

So Friday (April 4) night I'm in bed reading and about to doze off. Ben is working in his office down the hall. I was on my back and decided to roll to my right side. As soon as I did, I felt my stomach flip. Then I felt like I had butterflies. Knowing that I should be feeling the baby move any day now, I yelled for Ben! I didn't want to get excited over nothing and told Ben I thought I felt something but it was probably just my indigestion kicking in. Well, there's no way Ben can feel my indigestion, so we decided it was the baby moving. Imagine someone lightly tapping you on the arm with a finger-that's what it feels like.
And then it happened again Saturday night! Looks like I have a night kicker on my hands!

A Nursery in Progress

So, the nursery is a little slow going...especially since we don't know whether Baby Mitchell is a boy or girl. However, we have painted and chosen to go with black furniture. I know, it sounds bla, but it looks really cute with the green walls. I'm debating using black and white linens (toiles, ginghams, stripes, etc) and then filling in with blue or purple after the baby is born.

My Aunt Susan and Uncle Ed from Montgomery visited for a long weekend and took us baby shopping. It took all four of us to figure out how to fit the crib (and us) into the car. See the result below. Then, it only took 15 minutes to put 95% of the crib together. The last piece (the sliding side) took another 20-30! I just stayed out of the way (laughing and taking pictures) and Baker supervised the project

.

It's a....BOY!!!!!!!!!!

Really, it's a girl! Just kidding, we didn't find out! We did, however, receive alot of other info on this visit. Seems Baby Mitchell is already "advanced" (as Dr. Anding put it) for his (remember, we call it "he" but don't really know the sex) age. He's about a week ahead of schedule as far as his size is concerned. Just another way of saying I'm going to have a big-ass baby! Good thing God blessed me with these big 'ol hips!

The baby weighs 6 ounces and his organs look great. We got to see his brain, spine, heart, and the blood flow through the umbilical cord. Unfortunately, he wasn't in a dancing mood this morning and would not stretch out for us to see him. He stayed balled up for most of the exam. When the tech initially examined me (they make Ben wait outside until all the technical stuff is done) the baby was totally asleep. I had to turn onto each side, touch my toes a couple of times, do a little coughing, and get up and use the restroom just to get him to un-ball himself. Finally, when Ben came in and started talking to him and touching my stomach, the baby starting stretching. Sweet, huh?

We got a few pictures, but they didn't turn out too great. Below is a 3-D image (it doesn't look as cool as it does from the commercials on tv) where the baby is facing the camera and has his left arm across his face trying to hide his eyes and a side view where you can see his head, spine, and knee.

We have a couple of short video clips from the ultrasound machine that we will load tomorrow. They're no where near as awesome as the last video, but you can see him wave his arms and his heart pumping away. Check back soon!

Whew...

I haven't made a post in a while, so here goes....

Amanda and I had yet another ultrasound appointment today. She can give all the details, but it was essentially the second half of the Sequential Test - to make sure Baby Mitchell is growing the right way.

Well, the results were good. Apparently the baby is going to be smart and beautiful...Very healthy, it's growing a week or so faster than normal babies do, so larger and stronger than most!

We resisted them temptation to find out he or she, so we won't know boy or girl/ pink or blue until it's time! Crazy huh?

Amanda is going to scan the pix in soon, but none of them are really good because the little guy was sleepy and cranky. He's move around and wiggle lots, but then curl back up into a snuggly ball right away. I think it's because she didn't eat any spicy food before we started the appointment. Well, maybe that was a good thing!

Anyway, All is well and growing fine.

--Ben