Buc-ee’s

Fellow Texans, especially if you live in San Antonio or Houston, will appreciate this hilariously awesome gift from my sister!

Now on to The Fun Stuff!

We’ve been really cautiously guarding our hearts throughout this journey, but with last month’s ultrasound we have taken off the restraints and are in full force baby mode!

We started doing work on the nursery this week – patching the walls, replacing closet doors, and painting.  There is still so much more to do, but it is SO much fun, and, given that neither JH nor I are actually pregnant, it really helps to make us feel more connected to the whole pregnancy.

We’ve also allowed ourselves to do just a little baby shopping!!  We had a great time at one particular boutique with my sister over Thanksgiving weekend.

This burp cloth as well as the onesies are gifts from dear friends and my sister…

Weighing in at 9.5 ounces (drum roll, please)… BOY!

These stills are from our 18w3d ultrasound!  We are absolutely over the moon in love with him already…  When we first started the ultrasound he was curled up and sleeping on his tummy; making it difficult to impossible for the sonographer to determine the gender or take any of the other vital measurements we were there to do.

It turned out that our surrogate had not eaten breakfast in anticipation of blood work, and the sonographer thought this may be why the baby was so inactive.  Not a problem – a box of apple juice is apparently a magical baby animating elixir.  Half way through the box o’ juice, the baby started rolling around and kicking his legs. The result, a clear shot of what we needed to know to paint the nursery and a beautiful ten minute video of our son kicking, holding his ear, and generally moving about.

Many smile and tears.  A truly beautiful and wonderful day.

1st Trimester

We have been pretty good about not sharing beyond immediate family and were all geared-up to start telling people once we completed the first trimester.  Last Friday (10/8), I woke up to the above announcement on my “what to expect” iphone app.  Going online, however, we realized that there is an astonishing lack of consensus as to when the first trimester ends and the second begins.  Some say twelve weeks, others say week thirteen or fourteen.  We’re going with week thirteen, which is today!  So… YAY we’re having a baby!!!

It’s a Girl! (maybe)

All the excitement has really been getting to me.  So, despite all the controversy about the intelligender tests (accuracy is said to range from 0-80% with the company claiming 80%), we bought one, and the result was “girl”.  Positive all along that we are having a girl, one of our besty couple friends bought us our first little outfit. Adorable!

 

We’re going to repeat next week.  We won’t know, of course, until our 20 week ultrasound, but it is really fun!

Still Growing!

We had our ten week ultrasound today, and, this time, JH was able to join us.  It was unbelievable how much had changed in four weeks. No longer is our little fetus a vibrating piece of rice.  It is now shaped like a baby and squirming around like a hyper little gummy bear and waving it’s arms and legs as though it was doing jumping jacks.  Heartbeat was strong and doctor said that all the movement was best indicative of how well the pregnancy is progressing.  It was an unbelievably powerful and emotional day.

heartbeat

Heartbeat confirmed!  Today we were able to see the baby’s heartbeat on ultrasound. It was confirmed at 108 bpm, which is apparently appropriate for the gestational age (6w 5d).  It basically looked like a short vibrating piece of string.

Next ultrasound isn’t until September 24th.  At that point we will be 10 weeks.  We are very much looking forward to that scan in the hopes that we can rest a little easier

Singleton

We had our first appointment with the OBGYN this week and we got great news!  We are five weeks and six days pregnant with a singleton measuring CRL 2.6mm.  The due date is April 21, 2011.

While we were a bit early to see a heartbeat, the doctor said all looked as it should. We will be repeating the ultrasound this week to confirm heartbeat!  SO exciting (and so anxious about next u/s)!!!!!!

The Betas Are Rising! The Betas Are Rising!

Well, we are 16 days after our LH surge and we found out today that our betas are indeed rising. In fact, it was 830 this morning.  Check out what the chart for day 16 says above!  Yikes!  Doctor says he has seen high numbers result in singletons and vice versa, so not to jump to conclusions. But- that directionally it does suggest potential multiples. We scheduled our first ultrasound a week from Wednesday (the 25th). We should know more then!!

Darker and Darker

We go on Monday for tests to make sure that our hCG levels are rising appropriately. In the meantime, we have been doing an HPT each day to watch the lines darken!  🙂