(pre) baby pics!

Cindy's mom says it looks like me. i'm not sure what that means - it's sometimes hard to tell when she's joking...

Wow. Just wow.

Kenny and I had our ultrasound appointment bright and early at 8am this morning. I was so excited all morning, and even had trouble sleeping last night. I had dreams of the baby, and even a dream that we had twins. As exciting as twins might be, I think Kenny and I both breathed a sign of relief that there was only one Chicklet in there today. So we went to it, not knowing what to expect out of the appointment. The room was dark, with a monitor next to the table I was on, and a monitor across form the table so that I could see what was going on. The technician skimmed over my belly with the wand, and then there it was! She showed us the gestational sac from pretty far out, and then zoomed in for a closeup of Chicklet. The baby pretty much looked like a peanut, with a little head and a bigger, blob-like body. We couldn't see any evidence of arms or legs, but we did see the heart beating! That was absolutely amazing. Chicklet was pretty much still, and then we saw a constant little flicker at the top of the body blob. The technician told us that we were looking at Chicklet's heart. I think Kenny and I both gasped at the same time. The heart rate was a strong 167 beats per minute, and Chicklet measures about 2/3 of an inch. So little! But then again, I remember when Kenny and I were celebrating when Chicklet hit the 1mm mark. 2/3 inches seems huge compared to that! The doctor informed us that everything looked absolutely perfect, which set my mind very much at ease.

Way to go, tilted uterus!

So I had my first "real" doctor visit this afternoon where I finally got to meet my new ob/gyn, Dr. Smith. She is WAY better than my old doc, who never even listened to my heart or breathing when I'd go in for an exam. My visit was short, but Dr. Smith stayed to answer all of my questions without making me feel like she had somewhere else to be (unlike my former doc). The visit was overall really good. I've only gained 2 pounds, my blood pressure is nice and low (110/60) and all of my blood work from the last visit came back normal. Good news all around! The only thing I've been all ticked off about is that we don't get an ultrasound until 12 weeks, but today I got a pleasant surprise. As Dr. Smith examined me, she determined that because my uterus is tilted towards the back of my abdomen (called a "retroverted uterus") she couldn't tell if it was the right size for my 8 week 4 day pregnancy. So she said I had a choice between a rectal exam (yuck) or an ultrasound (yay!), so of course I chose the ultrasound option. So now we're on the calendar for 8am tomorrow morning. I called Kenny to tell him the good news, and of course he freaked out because he thought something was wrong. Once he calmed down, I think it really hit him that this is real. I said, "Kenny, we get to see the baby tomorrow!" He just said "Oh my god." I can't wait to see what his reaction is tomorrow when we see Chicklet for the first time. I think I'll drink a little OJ before we go, to encourage some acrobatics from Chicklet :)

Waiting on the doctor is rough...

So I like my new ob/gyn group a lot. They're very focused on pregnancy care, rather than just your typical gynecology practice that just happens to have a couple of preggos as patients. On our first visit, they gave us some great reading materials. The nurse who took my vitals and medical history was great, too. I didn't get to meet the doctor--that happens this coming Tuesday. My only complaint is that they don't do any sort of ultrasound until the 12th week, and even then it's only done if you order the sequential testing (which we probably will). I just can't imagine why they'd want to wait so long to take a peek! I guess they assume that either everything is going great, or there's nothing they can do if it's not. The waiting is tough. I am a bit over 8 weeks pregnant now, so we have another 4 weeks to go until we get that ultrasound. But I guess that will be one very exciting appointment. Not only do we get to see the baby, we also get to hear the heartbeat. Little Chicklet already has a four-chambered heart that's pumping quite a bit of blood. It'll be really exciting to finally hear it.

Kenny is pregnant, too!

So they say that men sometimes get sympathetic pregnancy symptoms when their wives are pregnant. I think Kenny is experiencing this, and in fact, I think he was experiencing as soon as we found out I was pregnant and before I even experienced symptoms. It all started with the stupidity symptom. On my birthday, I asked Kenny to make some paella for me. He proceeded to make a recipe he found, and then "tweak" it Kenny-style. This involved quadrupling the rice that the recipe called for, without adjusting the water OR the size of the pan!! Thankfully, my pregnancy stupidity had not yet set in, and I told him we needed to separate it into more than one container before we wound up with an oven full of paella. I can imagine Kenny standing in front of the overflowing oven, shaking his hands at it, yelling "What am I supposed to do with all this paella?!" 3 baking dishes later, crisis averted. But it was still dumb.
Symptom number 2, and perhaps my most prevalent, is fatigue. He has been complaining for the last month that he's tired. Part of it could be that his sleep patterns are disrupted by him getting up to study at 4am. My sleep patterns are disturbed, but that has more to do with the frequent need to pee at all hours of the night. Anyway, Kenny is always tired, regardless of the fact he has adopted my pregnancy sleep schedule: in bed by 9pm, awake at 7am.
As long as Kenny's chest doesn't grow by a cup size and his waist doesn't grow with mine, I guess we're ok.

Pregnancy might make you dumb

apparently. this past week, cindy's legal assistant remarked that she was getting dumb, and that it was a typical side-effect of pregnancy. something about her forgetting this or that. today, i wasn't intending to prove this hypothesis correct, but in the span of a very short period of time it was quite easy to see that, indeed, pregnancy somehow really does make you dumb. let's all hope it's a temporary setback.

cindy was making some salmon for dinner tonight - a delicious recipe, caramelized in sugar. a wonderful side dish of zucchini, garlic, and onion (sounds horrendous, but is quite good, and anyway we have toothpaste and mouthwash). i noticed that cindy was cooking the whole 5 lb. salmon steak, roughly 10" long, in one piece.

"perhaps that would have been easier had you cut it into smaller pieces." i remarked.
"yeah, i thought about that after i already dropped it into the pan."

then cindy proceeded to fire up another burner to saute the vegetables, and then placed a small pan on the burner. we had a huge amount of vegetables to cook.

"you know, maybe it would be easier to use a larger pan for that." i remarked.
"yeah, you're probably right." so i got out a larger pan for her.

and then cindy noticed that the light in the range hood burned out.
"i know, i told you about that 2 hrs. ago, cindy." i said.

then i walked back towards the bedroom, and noticed that the sliding glass door to the deck was open. "cindy! i asked you to close the door behind the dog 15 minutes ago!"
"oh yeah! i forgot."
"cindy, carol was totally right."
"about what?..."

:)

Announcing to the Lees

so finally, after 3 billion ideas on how to announce the pregnancy, we came up w/ the winner about 2 minutes before hitting the road for Dallas. we took the baby clothes that Cindy bought, put them in a Tiffany's box, and gave the box to Linda under the pretense of it being an early birthday present. we then told Dwight that it was a crystal dancer figurine, and that we really wanted to get it all on video. so he pulled out the camera, handed it off to me, and then positioned himself perfectly right beside Linda as she opened the box to see what was inside... the expression on Linda's face was priceless - thank god we got it on video.