What flavor is it?? - Sonogram 20 weeks

what is it? do you know? what flavor is it? pink or blue? do you want to know what the baby is? girl or boy??? at first, i didn't want to know what it was going to be. chris had always said that it's up to me to make the decision. "whatever you want to do is what i want to do." truly said like a wonderful baby daddy. of course, i know he wanted to know deep down. some parent's decisions to wait for it to be a surprise say they waited because "there aren't that many surprises that happen in life". BOLOGNA! after some thinking, i figured... baby XX in itself was a huge surprise. i'm done with the thrills for right now.

what do you think??? perhaps you think it's a girl. you can clearly see the female anatomy. or wait... what is that? a fifth appendage? could that baby have a penis, or is that just the umbilical cord? well... if you guessed that it's a BOY, you are totally wrong. you want to rethink that decision to go into medschool. BABY XX IS A GIRL!!! i know, you're wondering how will my hate for the color pink, and all shades of the color pink will effect things. honestly, i don't know yet. i'm just stoked that my mom sent me a St. Louis Cardinals onesie- white with red pinstripes. similar to this: PIMP.

the sonogram was phenomenal! even more than the previous one! they get more and more amazing! she waved a couple of times, kicked, flopped around, stretched HER arms and legs out. you could see HER toes on her little feet and fingers on HER little hands. the doctor took a sonogram photo of HER where SHE was tipping HER head back and opening HER mouth pretty big. it looked like SHE was yawning! the CUTEST THING EVER!!!! here is the sonogram of it:

soooooo cute right? things aren't looking as roomy in there as they did before... i don't think i would do so well with my 5'8" stature and all, especially if i were wearing heels. but hey, when does that ever happen? at this point, SHE's about 6.5 inches from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel (aka. crown to rump measurement) SHE's my growing baby GIRL!!!

Perfect Fit - Sonogram 12 weeks

Here is Baby XX at her week 12 sonogram. I like having these sonograms being often! We get to see her a lot more. It never gets old, it's never dull, and it's quite funny and entertaining and emotional. It's good to see that XX doesn't look like an alien anymore, right? At this point, the baby is only 2 inches long! It seems like it's much bigger through the sonogram when you can see the detailings of the spine, facial profile and such. The baby continued to kick and kinda flip around like a fish out of water. Still rather amazing watching that little heart beat.

Dr. Bala said that the size of the baby is normal, and the size of the baby's neck was normal (a pre-test for possible trisomy-21 or Down's Syndrome) It's always a relief hearing that the baby is progressing normally and is healthy. It's so mindblowing that all this development happens with all its intricacies- blood vessels, organs, body shape, nerves, hair, skeletal system, muscles, ALL OF IT. i think how can God not be involved in something so complex and beautiful. it's amazing that things don't go wrong more often considering the elaborate 40 week process. Baby is "fearfully and wonderfully made". There's my "deep thought" for this blog entry. XX is beautiful and amazing, yes? If you disagree, i challenge you to a duel.

Alien Baby Sonogram - 10 weeks

Here is the sonogram of Baby XX at 10 weeeks. we could see the hands, feet, legs, arms and even FINGERS! it was flippin around in my belly and moving around. so crazy to imagine i'm growing someone inside of me. right now, he/she is 2-2.5 inches long. if you look at the top picture, you can see the eyes, nose and jaw forming. when they took that picture, the baby was waving its arm around like it was waving. super cute. so we got a picture. :) the heartbeat was super fast, we got to hear it. the baby's head is massive as you can see. hopefully it'll grow into his head... unlike its mother. ;) i have sucha big head. hahahahHAH.

of course, i started crying. not like CRYING, but tearing, sniffling. it was a huge relief to see tht the baby was continuing to grow and live and thrive. though i knew everything was going to be "ok" and will work out, in the back of my head i was a little worried since my pregnancy horomone blood levels were going all over the place. my doctor didn't freak me out, but was just honest about the situation and that there was some concern. but then again, all pregnancies aren't "normal". part of me was scared that the baby wouldn't be alive and moving, or something terrible like that. so it was a huge relief. God's so amazing. i can't stop thinking about it.

the doctor scanned the area and showed the umbilical cord that was attached to the baby. he then said, "and there's only one." PHEW! he went on to explain how if there were more then it would be "here in this dark area". there was a slight possibility that there was going to be more than one, according to my hCG horomone levels. but only one baby! two would be twice the blessing, but twice the everything else. so one is good. :)

Our First Sonogram! 7 weeks

Here is me and my Bebi at the doctors office, waiting for the sonogram. Isn't it amazing how much better black & white photos make people look better? Right now, I'm debating whether to tell you all the details of my first ultrasound appointment. Why should I show restraint? I shouldn't. I figure... you know me, we all love a funny story. So I went to the doctor with my baby's daddy, Christopher Lewis Volckmann, and my friend Melissa. They show us to the exam room and they tell me to strip down neked from the waist down and put on this paper robe- not so comfortable. So I apparently had some mental block that didn't understand "take off everything below your waist" and I left me under-roos on. I figured that I only saw sonograms done in movies, and they put that thing on your belly. Why would I have to strip down to nada? That would be silly and unnecessary...
So I get on the table (which has what looks to be a doggie wee-wee pad) and lay on me back. The doctor comes in, introduces himself and tells me to relax. So his back is turned towards me and he's prepping the sonogram device thingy. He turns around and has this long massive stick-like device that's hooked up to the sonogram machine. "This is the sonogram PROBE..." My eyes get SO big and open, you would have thought I turned white. "Just bend your knees and insert this like you would a tampon." He said it so casually, and I'm in shock. "Excuse me?" I asked. So now it hits me why I was supposed to take my 'roos off. Man, what a challenge.

Anyways, after that fiasco, things were a lot easier and "less shocking in a bad way." TA-DA!!! Look at it! Here is the first visual confirmation of our upcoming baby!! At first, everything was very technical. He showed me my uterus, the ovary from which the very egg came from (the right) and then the baby. it was extremely tiny and you couldn't see much movement- you could just see a little glitch of the pixels. He continued on with the technical jargon, which I remembered from high school and college biology classes, and he then zoomed in. The sonogram picture to the right is what we saw, but in motion. That "glitch of pixels" was the HEARTBEAT! the baby wasn't developed enough to where you could make out much of anything but the heartbeat, but it was AMAZING! the second we saw he/she, it became so much more real. *cue tears and sniffles* it's a rather intense experience... i'm making a little person inside of me! the due date is AUGUST 31st. Mark it on your calendar folks...