Baby is a......

GIRL! Well done to all of you who correctly guessed the gender of Baby Stevens! Congrats to Linnea Stevens, the winner of the gender drawing!

Last week I received a call from the doctor's office informing me that the ultrasound tech had jury duty and we were going to have to reschedule my ultrasound for Friday morning. I was really sad and a bit upset because I've been so looking forward to this one visit. After my check-up the doc told the front desk gals to call me if the tech came in at all in the afternoon and to schedule me in. I was so lucky I was able to go in after all at 3pm.

It was by far the coolest experience in the pregnancy to date. We not only found out that you are a girl, but we were able to watch you move, saw your heart fluttering, you showed us your hand once as though you were high-fiving us, and again looked like you were making the quieting shush with one finger. (As pictured here) The tech was telling us it appeared you liked to play with your ear and she showed us. Already you have cute mannerisms. We don't have any names yet for you so you will still be Baby until we can find a name or names we like.

How did you look medically? Fantastic. We saw the four chambers of your heart, your brain was developing and looked big, as far as we could tell you have ten toes and ten fingers. Your kidneys and bladder looked great and even your tiny tummy was looking good. You do not have a cleft palette, and I'm amazed at what they check for. We may have one more ultrasound around the 8th month to check the placenta and make sure we don't have to do a C-section, but for now there isn't much reason to be concerned. My doctor seems to be very thorough in this regard and I'd rather know in advance than later and have it become a medical emergency.

Banana-fana-fo-fana

We are in our 21st week and you are 7 inches long, about the length of a large banana and you weigh almost 11 ounces. You are practicing swallowing so now I need to really pay attention to the foods I'm feeding us. Don't worry, I'll still have some ice cream! Your arms and legs are finally in proportion and the cartilage is turning to bone. I've been able to feel you move about a little more each day, and even Daddy can feel you once in awhile now.

I had a monthly check-up yesterday morning and everything is coming along great. The doc told me at this point I need to be gaining about a pound a week until delivery. By my calculations, at delivery I should weigh about the same as I did when I first found out I was pregnant! Not many women can say that! Daddy was along as well and he heard your heartbeat for the first time. I'm glad he got to hear it!

Cantalope!

Baby, I need to play major catch up here. Last Wednesday we entered our 20th week where you became the size of a cantaloupe. Hard to believe already, but true. I started to feel you moving about, but no consistency to what I have to believe are little kicks or elbows. You are about 10 ounces and 6.5 inches long.

But why the long delay? Well, Grandpa had a bit of a motorcycling accident back in September. Don't worry, he's going to be ok. He underwent a surgery a few weeks ago and when he went back about two weeks ago for post-op to make sure everything was going ok, he found out he was going to have to go under the knife once again. This time it was closer to critical organs and seemed a bit more risky. I flew back on the 17th of October to help him out for a little over a week. I'm glad I went.

Grandma and Grandpa Sanderfoot are excited to meet you. They were rubbing my belly hoping you would give a kick for them, but you were sleeping at the wheel or too bashful. Overall it was a very relaxing and kicked back week. Grandpa and I watched a lot of movies, went out for coffee a couple of times and even went to visit your Great-Grandma Sanderfoot and your Great-Great Grandma Melone. Great-Great Grandma just celebrated her 99th birthday in September. She is very eager to meet you and I hope she gets to. That would be a five generational picture worth more than a thousand words. Your Grandma Sanderfoot took me to Babies R Us to look over the registry items and she is pretty excited about the things on there. Your Uncle Carl and Aunt Nikki took me along with them to a dog park to play with Stella and Jake. Nikki also bought you the first of the baby clothes. They are little booties and very cute.

Mango Tango Week 19

Welcome to Week 19! You are about 6 inches long, a Subway sub anyone? And you weigh about half a pound! It must be you making the scale go up a tiny bit, because I still don't feel like I'm doing a great job of gaining weight yet even with the meds. There isn't much going on right now other than more development of what you have and getting bigger. As the weeks progress, more of your internal systems will become more mature and able to function out in the world.

I've been feeling more odd movements from inside which is a cool feeling, but we haven't been able to feel them on the outside yet. We try every night though when it seems you are more active in hopes that very soon Daddy can feel you too. We talk to you too in hopes that you won't be as frightened when you hear our voices. I talk to you throughout the day which is kind of funny. I'll say things like, "Come on Baby, we have some errands to do. We are going to go to the post office, Office Depot and then the grocery store." Like you have a choice in it anyways! Other times when I can't tell if it is some crazy gas or you dancing in there, I'll put my hand on my belly and tell you to keep dancing, live it up in there while you still have space. When Daddy talks to you he will say things like, "Hey Baby! Wake up, haha, I want to feel you kick!" His hands feel pretty cold against my belly so if you can feel that through the layers of skin, throw him a bone and kick a bit harder.

The Week of Fives

This week Baby you are 5.5 inches long and about 5 ounces in weight. Which is about the size of a chicken breast featured here from KFC. (Sorry Ben, another meat reference, but I think this is the last one) It is also the kick off for our 5th month of pregnancy! Yay! At 18 weeks you are now mastering how to yawn and hiccup. You have also developed your fingerprints on your fingers and toes. You are truly one-of-a-kind now!

On Sunday night I woke up to a strange sensation and the truth is I'm still not sure if it was you or a dream. This actually happened again last night, but not as vividly. It was a fluttering sensation from within on my right side. According to the books and Dr. Diane this is what it feels like to feel you move in the early days. I hope that's true! It hasn't been consistent, but always at night when I am fast asleep. I hope soon enough you will do it long enough for me to tell your Daddy about it so he can feel too. I haven't felt it from the outside yet, just from within. So keep up your aerobics--I do realize I will regret this in a month or so--because there are a few people who would like to say hello.

Guess the Gender, Win Big!

We are three weeks away from finding out what Baby's gender is. I thought it would be really fun to hear everyone's guesses. Only one guess per person, and the group of folks who guess the correct gender by Oct. 26th @ midnight (verified by ultrasound on Oct 27th) will be entered into a drawing! You can facebook your guess, email me at: theresa.ann.stevens@gmail.com, or leave a comment on this blog with your guess.

Innermost thoughts

I was looking through the pictures of the past week and there are two that strike me with such emotion that I had to share. This particular picture was taken by Ben Stevens at the Erikson Orchard in Bayfield, WI.

In this brief moment that Ben captured, I had a lot on my mind. I was thinking, "Wow. So this is how big Baby is." I was comparing the size of the apple to the size of my tummy and trying to figure out the logistics of 1. How can this be? 2. Are they sure Baby is really that big? 3. Wow, I really did lose a lot of weight and that belly really is all Baby now. 4. Am I taking care of myself well enough to keep Baby healthy? 5. I better bite into one of these apples to make sure, and I'll put the other in a pocket for later. Which is exactly what I did after this thought process.

But truth be told, (because apparently that's all I can seem to do these days...sorry folks no more nice pleasantries here!) that's not all that was on my mind. I talked with my dad the day before and learned that he was going into surgery the next day. It shook me a bit to think of him as human and vulnerable like the rest of us because he has always been a solid rock. Even when the worst things happened (and they really did) he was always there. He might've cracked for a minute or two, but he was always strong for the rest of us. And one of my many happy memories of my youth was cherry picking with the family in Door County. Something about walking amongst the trees reminded me of those times.

The second picture was also taken by Ben Stevens on an iron bridge in Bayfield, WI. The picture looks serene and beautiful, us walking towards something...parenthood? Ironically, we were laughing and I couldn't bear to look at Ben and Linnea at that particular moment because Jon decided to be a funny guy. Maybe he sensed that I needed a bit of cheering up, or I had a heavy head of thoughts. He's good at being able to read me like that.

Baby, I hope you read this particular passage when you are a teenager, hating both of us "So uncool parents who won't let you do anything fun", and I hope you realize how lucky you are to be born to a couple of great parents who love you. But most of all, since the test came back positive, I've never stopped thinking about you and your well-being.