Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Ultrasounds and Articles

Well crud. I just got a call from my OB's office about our "20 week" ultrasound, and we won't actually get it until the 23rd week!! I thought for sure they'd be able to get us in before Thanksgiving, but no, we have to wait until Nov. 29th instead. That's like an eternity away!! But I guess there's nothing we can do about it. Sniff.

On a completely different note, I was reading a very interesting article in the Boston Globe Magazine about infant academics, and I think I can say with some confidence that we will not be drilling our 4-month-old on classical composers and famous artists. For one thing, our child will naturally be a genius so we don't have to worry about such things. ;-) But for another, can't we let our kids be kids? Obviously it's important to provide mental stimulation for your child so that their brains develop properly, but I want a kid who is excited about learning new things, not stressed out that they aren't living up to unrealistic goals. The article definitely leans the same way (some may even call it biased, but since I agree with it I won't use such a loaded word...). I recommend reading it if you have time--it's pretty lengthy:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/10/28/rush_little_baby/

Hope you are all doing well this fine Tuesday! Take care--

-Suzi

Friday, October 26, 2007

Updating, wiggling and pining

Happy Friday everyone!

We had a good OB appointment yesterday--nothing too exciting to report, my blood pressure is fine, the scale at the office is obviously broken but in my favor (somehow my chart shows I've only gained 1 pounds since my last appointment, for a total of 2 pounds since my initial appointment at week 8--obviously wrong but who am I to argue?), and the baby's heartbeat was strong, somewhere between 160 and 180 beats per minute (the Wee One kept moving so it was hard to get an exact reading). Rick recorded it and tried to post it yesterday but for all his effort couldn't figure out how to do it. If any other bloggers out there know how to do this, please let us know! If you want to try to imagine it, think whoom-whoom-whoom-whoom 160 times during the next minute. Add a couple of swishy sounds every 8 beats or so. That's exactly what it sounded like. :-) Our next appointment will be the anatomy scan, but we don't know when it will be yet. There's a complicated scheduling system with the parent hospital (New England Medical Center) who does the important ultrasounds that seems to involve a lot of faxing and waiting. As far as we can tell it will be sometime around Nov. 8th - 15th. I should be getting a call with the date sometime in the near future.

Junior Jr.'s doing quite a bit of wiggling, and it's getting easier to feel it these days. At first it felt like something crawling under my skin, like that slimy black stuff from the X-Files, then it was like soap suds popping, now it's more like he/she's flicking me from inside. The other morning I thought I could feel it externally on my hand but it happened so fast that it could have been my imagination. It's still pretty early for that.

Rick's going away on a boy's weekend to the Cape tomorrow, leaving me to pine away for him for two whole days. Sigh. Actually I'm going to be pretty busy too so I'm sure time will pass fairly quickly. Lots of stuff to do for my classes plus a little socializing planned. And Rick is home tonight (Friday) which is unusual--he usually picks up overtime on Friday's. So after I get a manicure and pedicure tonight (yes it's safe, stop worrying!) we'll go out on an actual date--woo-hoo! What we're doing is still a mystery to both of us, but we'll figure it out.

Hope you all have great weekends! Much love--

-Suzi

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Upcoming OB Appointment

Our next OB appointment is this Thursday, and though I was just in for bloodwork a couple of weeks ago, it feels like forever since our last appointment. My OB did a lot of handholding with us through the first trimester, so I guess I got a little spoiled for those first few months. Now I'm just a regular pregnant lady--which is great, don't get me wrong! I don't want to be the patient with all the problems! Yet the extra ultrasounds and doppler-time were so comforting. Ah well, I'll count my blessing and be glad that nothing warrants close monitoring!

I am looking forward to hearing the baby's heartbeat again--I could listen to that all day! Hopefully Rick will figure out a way to record it. If he does I'll try to post it here. We'll also be scheduling our next ultrasound--the anatomy scan. If I'm not mistaken they'll measure a bunch of stuff and--assuming Baby Webson (or would it be Hanber?) cooperates--we'll get to find out what we're having! (a boy? a girl? a puppy?) ;-)

I think that's it for today--work is beckoning. Thanks to all of you who posted comments or emailed me! It's good to hear from you!

Kisses--

-Suzi

Monday, October 22, 2007

Intro


Hi there friends and family! After much hemming and hawing I decided it was time to start a blog about--you guessed it--this little guy or gal who will be joining our family in March! At first I was a bit reluctant since I find many blogs to be a little self-absorbed (sorry all of you who are regular bloggers--you know you're the exception to the rule!) and with everything that's going on in my life I didn't think I'd have time to keep up with it. However I've been assured that it takes just about as much time as writing an email, and it's a good way to keep everyone in the loop without clogging their mailboxes with photos. And if I'm being honest with myself, I am a bit self-absorbed so I figured, why not?

Here are the facts: After 2 long years of trying to get pregnant followed by one heartbreaking pregnancy loss last winter, Rick and I are finally ready to tell everyone that we're expecting. Those of you who have seen me in the past 4 or 5 weeks were obviously in on this news (note the photo of Rick and I and my already-big belly, taken last night). I'm almost 18 weeks pregnant (17 weeks and 6 days, but who's counting?), and so far everything has been perfect (knock on wood). We've had ultrasounds and testing that have assured us that the baby's chances for any of the major chromosomal or neural tube defects are extremely low, I've felt pretty great throughout the whole pregnancy, and as mentioned my belly is growing steadily already (I've been told I look like I'm 5-1/2 months pregnancy already--I'd have to agree). The wee one must be healthy with growth like this!
I could write all day, but instead I'll wrap this up so you all don't get completely bored by my first post. I'll try to be good and update regularly. Please feel free to respond--I'd love to hear from everyone!
Much love--
-Suzi