Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Half Baked!!!

So we finally hit the halfway mark!! Wohoo!!! Almost done!! This should have been updated on Sunday, but with moving and not having access to the computers at work, it is a few days late...my apologies.

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday. We received complete confirmation it is a girl, so Isabella Reese is here to stay!

BellaReese is doing great, growing well and kicking a ton. I even saw a kick from the outside on Sunday night, part of my belly just lifted out. It was very exciting. (Brian still hasn't felt her yet, he is never around during a kicking spree.) Based on her bone measurements and weight, she is a few days ahead of her due date, the sooner the better!! The measurements made me laugh, actually, because the Ultrasound tech measured her femur bone and that was just 3 days ahead of schedule, and then her humerus bone which was a full week and a half ahead of schedule. I turned to Brian and said, "at least we know she is 100% yours!" (a few posts ago, I mentioned that it is a Martin trait to have much longer arms/wing spans than the average person). Her heartbeat was at 142 BPM, and she is weighing in at just over 13 ounces, a very healthy baby! Her legs were crossed the whole time...again...but she was nice enough to mainly have them crossed at the ankles, giving us a full gender shot, showing the indicative "three lines" (the outlined lips of the labia) to prove it is a girl. Good for her, because otherwise she would have been grounded until she was 20.

We got to see the 4 chambers of her heart and the aorta, as well as watch the blood flow through the imbilical cord. The tech was able to show us, in color, how the blood flows in and where it goes, and then how it comes out. It was quite remarkable.

She is currently breech, her head closer to my ribs and her feet on my cervix (it is her favorite place to kick and it hurts ALOT!). She is facing the right, and based on my septum tissue growth, if she can manage to stay facing that way and slowly rotate over time, she should be able to position herself under the septum and providing her head a way into the birth canal, which translates to me having a vaginal birth, otherwise, by week 36, we will know if I have to have a C-Section. Without the septum, most doctors can assist in physically turning the baby around from the outside so the head ends up closer to the cervix, but with a septum, once the 36 week mark comes, it is impossible to rotate the baby from the outside and I will go under the knife. It is still very early to plan for a C-Section, but the doctors were just reminding me it is a possibility.

The next Ultrasound is scheduled for May 4th, and the one after that is June 1st. The next OB appointment is April 29th. The appointment after that will be around the 28th week, and I will have to get a rhogam shot since my blood type is O-. There is a whole issue with women who have negative blood types and their husbands who have positive...more or less if not taken care of with the shot, my body would actually try to kill the second baby and/or my own body in the process of gestation. It is a precautionary shot, given once at 28 weeks and again after BellaReese is born. We start our 6 week birthing class on Thursday June 4th, that covers everything from breathing techniques to breastfeeding and dealing with an infant. Brian and I are excited for it...hopefully it will help cure our worries!

I will be posting a few pics from the Ultrasound after this entry. Here is the update on the baby this week:
How your baby's growing:Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot or a rootbeer bottle. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now, and if you're having a girl, her vagina has begun to form as well.
All her facial features are formed and hair is growing on her head. She's even acting like a baby and will occasionally suck her thumb or yawn (I forgot to mention we got to see her opening and closing her mouth! so precious!!)....Baby's heartbeat is getting stronger and can be heard using a good old-fashioned stethoscope. By now, fetal bone marrow starts making blood cells—previously done by the liver and spleen. This may not sound that exciting, but it's good news. The amniotic fluid that has been cushioning your little bean now serves another purpose: Your baby uses it to "practice" chowing down. Yes, it sounds gross (as many aspects of pregnancy do), but it's an important step for your baby toward being able to chow down in the real world. Your baby has been swallowing amniotic fluid for a while now, but now the intestines are finally developed enough that she's absorbing small amounts of sugars from it. And let's face it, being able to effectively digest sugar is important at every stage of life.

That's all the words I got right now, enjoy the pics to come!

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