A Little Birthday Celebration...

 Adrienne, Sandra, and Me: The 3 preggers enjoying some virgin strawberry daqueris! 

 Catt showing off where my baby is...and no, that is not my wine glass! :)

Future "Mom and Dad"! :)

The Second Sonogram

The second sonogram was a little more visualizing for us, although still nothing that really resembled a human yet. We went in a few weeks after our first visit, same room, same equipment, same probe. I promised Heather that I wouldn't ask nearly as many questions while the tech had the wand wanding. Well, not that many, at least. She did the usual checks - making sure that everything was in the right place. Our baby, now closer to the size of a pea (about 2.6 mm), was indeed in the right place, hanging from the front part of the uterus, which would five us good views for all subsequent sonograms. The pictures she took looked more like a cocoon than a baby, but keep in mind, we're still pretty early on - but so much is happening in that little being. The nervous system is forming, the brain is developing like crazy (250,000 neurons a minute!!), arm and leg buds are developing, and so much more!! By this time too, the heart is beating more along what you would be expected of an 11 week old embryo (almost graduating to fetus!). 132 beats per minute this time!! Wahoo!! We've got a nice strong heartbeat that we could see on the screen, and hear! No video yet - something up with the VCR I guess - all that technology, and we can't get a freakin' video? C'mon! Anyway, so next time we see our baby, we'll be able to tell if daddy put the stem on the apple! 8 weeks...seems like forever!

The First Sonogram

I'll let Bob explain this one...

You hear about "the first sonogram" all the time - they're going to do this, and put that there, and look around, but you never really know what to expect - or how much they're going to zoom in. The whole biology of pregnancy and fetal development really intrigues me - amazing that two tiny little cells coming together ultimately end up as a human being. Our first sonogram was around 6 weeks - still pretty early, so I didn't expect much. We went into the sonogram room - there's this big machine with a monitor and all sorts of buttons, and, well, probes. These days, they're pretty high-tech, but there's still something to be said for getting up close and personal. I'll spare the details, but let's just say that while the sonogram technician and I were chatting about where the egg came from (right ovary), and how she could tell, and where the "baby" was, and how big it was at the time (slightly smaller that a poppy seed), and that we actually heard the beginnings of a heartbeat and saw it on screen. It was 83 beats per minute, but at that point, the heart was barely formed. We'll wait to the next visit to really see some development. So, that was about it - got to see a tiny little black and white dot on a black and white screen - looked more like a TV with no signal, but it was my baby - and confirmation that indeed, my little dudes swam and did what they're supposed to do!

"SHUT-UP!"

Those were the exact words out of my mouth when I first found out I was pregnant. It was a Saturday morning. I was a little "late", so I decided to use one of those lovely test sticks to find out for sure. It didn't take long for the word "pregnant" to pop up on the stick. So what's the first thing that comes out of my mouth?? "SHUT-UP!" Bob wakes up at this exclamation from the bathroom, and half asleep asks "what?". I walk out, saying nothing and just hold up the stick. He doesn't have his glasses on, so he first asks if it's an ovulation stick. "Nope", I said, "it's the other kind."  Although we had been trying and wishing for that day to come... nothing can prepare you for that initial feeling we felt when we found out we were indeed pregnant. I think Bob has had a permanent grin on his face since that day! :)