Your baby is the size of a...what?

Let me say up front that I have no new news to post about our developing baby here at 18 wks and 2 days.  We have our formal ultrasound scheduled for early next week that will tell us whether we are going to be having a little LaVitrius Byrne or a little Money (pronounced Monet like the artist) Byrne.  Actually Money could be a boys name not just a girls, but that's besides the point.  That being said, I thought I would take a minute to examine a trend that we've noticed in pregnancy literature- both online and in print form.  This trend is to compare the size of your current pregnancy (fetus/conceptus/product of conception to be politically correct for those of you who don't yet consider little Money Byrne to be a human life) to various items. This trend may be well known to those of you that have been through pregnancy before, but to us it is rather confusing.  These items are myriad in nature but most often involve vegetables.   According to some sources, Money Byrne is the size of a sweet potato.   According to others, little Lavitrius Byrne is the size of a turnip.  Who do we believe?  Isn't there some sort of expert consensus on this type of thing?  I would like to think that somewhere experts have gotten together and found the median weight and size of all different varieties of turnips and sweet potatoes in order to reliably predict which vegetable to which we should be comparing our unborn child.  Are we talking Macomber turnips or the Brassica rapa variety?  I'm assuming somebody has looked into this or am I placing too much faith in the internet?  Let's not even get into the size of the uterus (for those who are wondering Heather's uterus is currently the size of a cantaloupe).  Why can't we pick a more standardized system if we are going to be labeling the size of our little L-a ("Ladasha" for our 5 faithful blog followers) Byrne?  Why can't we say that this week, your baby is the size of a baseball and your uterus is the size of a dodgeball (not the hard kind but the softer kind that don't hurt as much)?   If I say your baby is the size of a deck of cards and your uterus is the size of a softball then you know exactly what I'm talking about.  If I say your baby is the size of a of a sweet pea or a papaya, I might as well be telling you your baby is the size of a large rice pudding and your uterus is the size of a small pot roast.  You would have no idea what I'm talking about.  Sorry for the rant I just had to get that off my chest.  We'll update next week once we officially know whether to expect a little Tayshawn or a little Brianida Byrne!

I'm pretty sure I saw boy parts?

Notice the question mark though.  Heather and I went over to the ER this morning to take a look with the ultrasound machine.  The morning is always the quietest time of the day- the really sick people (i.e. those with emergencies) have already showed up or been admitted from the night before, it's too early for the drunks to be out and about crashing their cars into things, and the pain medication seekers don't show up until early evening, so there usually a lull for a couple hours until things really start to pick up and there are plenty of open rooms to take a look with the bedside ultrasound.  Now I'm no OB ultrasound tech.  The type of stuff I normally do for pregnant ladies with the ultrasound in the ED is limited to checking location of the pregnancy, dating (rough), examining the cervix and ovaries, and looking for life-threatening issues (i.e. emergencies).  Finding out the sex of a baby is rarely an emergency, but in this case it was fun to try nonetheless.  I'm pretty sure I saw boy parts?   That little squirmy wormy baby was moving all around and it took a while to wait for him (her?) to get in a good position where we could see a good frog-legged type view of the behind.  I'll bet you a nickle those were boy parts.  Stay tuned for results of our official ultrasound in a few weeks- I may retract my above statements about the sex of this squirmy wormy little baby.  For now, we'll hold off on doing any painting until we have a more official diagnosis than "I'm pretty sure I saw boy parts."

Thanksgiving Belly

It's 15 weeks and 3 days today!

I had another check-up yesterday and met a new doctor who is equally as wonderful as my main OB, Dr. Puritz. I am very confident to deliver with this group at Sentara Leigh. I keep hearing great things about the nursing staff and the rooms at the hospital. Plenty of room for visitors, hint hint.
 
At this point, I have lost a pound and am back to my original weight, but I have no idea how that works! Where did the weight of this new "Thanksgiving belly" go? Jonathan assures me that it looks like a baby bump, but I think it looks like a nice beer gut. Thankfully I have my trusty Bella Band to tuck things in. It's like Spanks for pregnant women :) I am still in my regular clothes but I have gracious friends and family members who have/are going to supply a great maternity wardrobe for me soon!
We have a very mobile baby. I don't know if this is normal, but we think it's exciting to know that our little one is swimming like crazy every day.  During all of our ultrasounds the baby has been wiggling and moving its arms. Dr. Puritz had a very difficult time finding the heart rate during that first check at 11 weeks and Dr. Proctor almost lost it as well. But all sounds and looks good in baby world.

We have picked out a crib and are starting to look at other baby furniture for the nursery. It's amazing as so much of this starts to become real and we're seeing evidence of a baby in our home already. Jill Speasmaker gave us our first baby book, Brown Bear Brown Bear, which was a favorite for both of us growing up. We know baby Byrne will just love it (and will love Jill, also!).

Celebrating Easter at Beth and Matt's house (14 weeks)