Week 16

Time for another progress shot.

kickin'

now that i am feeling a lot better i am getting more excited about being pregnant. i really want to start feel kicking, but don't really know when to expect it. plus maybe it won't be that fun after a while. we'll see soon i guess.

Animal Rebellion

Over the last few weeks, the furry members of our family have really been starting to act up. Bobby, the gray cat, got in some kind of scuffle and had to go to the vet. They shaved his paw and found 2 giant bite marks. He's all better now, but we had the fun task of giving him medicine orally twice a day.

Maddie, the black cat, is hellbent on destroying every new rug we bring in. I just bought one for my office. I got it at Target, so now you know that we are some real classy elitist yuppies. Maddie clawed it up in the first few hours. It's now become a war between us. She already ruined one nice rug, but I refuse to let this one suffer. Even though it's a pain, I've been closing my office door whenever I'm not in it. But every once in a while I'll forget and she'll take advantage of my mistake and attack. It's always the same corner of the rug.

The other day, I was in the office and she ran in, ripped at the rug with her claws and ran back out again in about 1.5 seconds. It was a taunting blitzkreig of an attack, and if I wasn't so pissed, it would have been funny. We're looking into some kind of organic cat repellant spray we can use, but in the meantime she's getting locked out of the house during prime office-using hours.

Lucy, our Great Dane, has also been acting up. She's become more and more blatant in her begging for food and even more stealthy in stealing it. We set up a corner of the big couch for her to lay on, with a big blanket to keep her from getting it too stinky. Yet, every time we turn around she's on one of the other unprotected couches, acting all innocent. Last night, Lucy and Maddie got into a scuffle on Heather's lap, which resulted in 2 banished pets and 2 large scratches on Momlette's leg.

I'm starting to think that these guys somehow know that in the very near future, they will no longer be the center of attention. They are going to lose it when Huevo is born. Instead of spending 80% of our home time catering to their needs, we'll be looking after this new intruder. How will they respond? Probably not too well. We are way too attached to Lucy to ever let her go, but last night we discussed the idea of Bobby and Maddie finding some new homes somewhere....

Hmmm. Anyone want 2 incredibly well-behaved kitties? Hello? Anyone...?

You want to wear what?!?!?!?

I've had it in my head that Huevo is a boy so when we found out that it is more likely a girl I had to adjust my thinking. Unfortunately i had some scary thoughts...on my to work the next day I passed by a middle school in suddenly had this horrifying flash forward of arguing with my 14 yr old daughter about the fact that she was not allowed to wear a g-string and low rise jeans or some such horribly provocative in-fashion outfit at 14...ahhhh.
Then i remembered that not all teenage girls are boy crazy and want to wear completely age inappropriate things. I wasn't and didn't so maybe there is hope. Besides i should probably focus on the birth and delivery at this point and deal with the rest in time.

The Twins

I stopped by Jody and Ken's this weekend and got to see their new twins Jane and Casey. The baby boom in our little Portland group has just been crazy. Let's see, in the past 4 years, there's been Ned & Megan with Eamon and Hank, Heather & Andre with Olivia and Colin, Jody & Tony with Lucas, and Christa & Murray with Margaret. It's wild to think that Ken and I have been friends for 12 years and we both end up having our first baby in 2008...

Momlette belly progress - 14 weeks

Of course, Huevo's mama is now known as Momlette. Here's the first of a series of photos to track the belly growth.

Ultrasound was sound

Good news from this morning's ultrasound: everything is normal. The staff at the clinic were great. We met with 4 different people and they were all very warm and helpful. Heather even told the nurse that it was the best blood drawing she had ever had. Well, maybe we were a little high from just seeing the ultrasound, but still...

We first met with a Genetic Counselor and she went through our histories and all the potential problems a developing baby faces. It was actually pretty scary. I really had no idea that Down Syndrome was totally random - it has nothing to do with your history or genetics.

I think we were both a little apprehensive when we went into the ultrasound room after that. But once we saw Huevo pop up on the screen, all the worries seemed to melt away. I was trying to watch her measure this area behind the neck where they can see warning signs for any chromosome problems. I thought it read .21 cm, which we knew was in the normal range. Then when the doctor came in, he confirmed it. He was a pretty funny guy actually - he walked in the room and said in one breath, "I'm Dr. So and So, everything's normal, do you have any questions?" He also said that Huevo was the cutest baby he'd seen all day, but we didn't really buy that one. Both he and the ultrasound lady said it looked like Huevo was a girl, but it was too soon to confirm.

We still have to wait for the official results and the blood test on Cystic Fibrosis, but I think we're both feeling pretty good at this point. I was showing off the ultrasound pictures at work this morning, like a real proud papa!

The most important baby in the history of the universe

Ok, I don't want to fall into the stereotypical self-absorbed expecting parent trap here, but this will be a blog dedicated to our baby-to-be, currently known as Huevo. We found out that we were pregnant when we were on vacation in Mexico in February. I only know 7 words of Spanish and huevo was one of them, and the concept of "egg" was certainly apropos, so there you have it. I'm getting so used to the name, I'm starting to wonder if it could actually translate to the real world...

The picture above is Heather's positive pregnancy test strip posing with a lovely pair of Mexican coconuts.