36-week checkup

Oh this Little Boy. He’s a Stinker. And guess what? Stinker is the same in English AND Deutsch.

So, today we had our 36-week checkup. Now mind you, I’ve had a feeling about the news we were about to receive since Sunday, but it still wasn’t something I was excited to find out. Small Fry is now transverse in an upside down position. Basically this picture, but he’s flipped over.

Okay, so his head and bum are in the same places, but his spine is up by my ribs, so he's face down instead of face up.

How did I know he was no longer head down, like he’s supposed to be? My first inkling was on Sunday at church. We were sitting there and all the sudden Baby Boy got the hiccups. But these hiccups were in a strange place, not down in my lower abdomen like they had been – these were up by my ribs. Hmmm…I thought to myself. This could be interesting. And low and behold, I was right.

Everything else is fine. I’m up to 88.5 kilograms (yes, only up .2 kg from my last appointment and 14.5 kg from my 6-week checkup). My urine had some sugar in it today but I’m pretty sure that’s from the Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food Ryan and I ate last night. (Which let me tell you, is a little piece of Heaven here on earth. How can you go wrong with chocolate, carmel and marshmallow? Oh, that’s right, you can’t.) My blood pressure was a little high again – 140/80, but more on that in a minute.

Baby Boy’s head diameter is about 8.92 cm, with a circumference of 31.64 cm. His femur length is about 6.74 cm. And his foot – holy cow. We had a hard time getting a view of his foot, but when we did, wow. I’m hoping he was moving or something, otherwise this child is going to be born with enormous feet. Literally. The measurement the doctor took today came in at 7.35 cm. That’s longer than his femur!

We don’t have any ultrasound images to show for today that are worth looking at but his heart, bladder, kidneys, liver, aorta, everything looks good and healthy.

Also did a check for Hepatitis B and Strep B today. Should find out about those next week.

As far as my blood pressure goes, I said I would come back to it. Because it was measuring high, the doctor decided to monitor me for 30 minutes just to make sure everything was okay. So, I was hooked up to this cool machine that tracked Baby’s heartrate, movements and my blood pressure. His heartrate ranged anywhere from 129 to 170 depending on if he was moving or not, but tended to settle in right around 140 beats per minute. My blood pressure went back down to normal (120/70) and the midwife who was monitoring me said everything looked good and she had no concerns. Although we hadn’t planned on an extra 30 minutes at the hospital, it was really cool to see how Baby’s heartrate changed when he would move, and knowing everything is okay in that arena makes me feel good.

So, now we wait and pray that Baby turns head down where he’s supposed to be by the time it’s time for him to be born. Ryan and I were doing some research last night and learned that less than 20% of babies who are transverse at 37 weeks remain that way once labor begins (Birthing Naturally). We were also recommended a sight called Spinning Babies and after reading on there, we decided to attempt the “forward-leaning inversion.” It’s definitely not a comfortable position, but seeing as I only have to do it for 30 seconds, 3 times a day, we figure it can’t hurt to try.

So, when you think of us over the next week, or 2, or 4, please feel free to send up a prayer that this pregnancy finishes strong and that Baby Boy does exactly what he needs to do to be in the perfect position for a healthy, natural birth.

32 week checkup

Wow. I know it’s been basically two months since I last posted an update. But wow! We’ve had a lot happen in the last two months! A trip to Italy, my sister visited us, a trip to Spain and I made a trip back to Iowa while Ryan stayed in Germany to work. I have a lot to catch you up on but let’s start at the present and I’ll work backwards.

We had our 32-week checkup yesterday. This was the first appointment Ryan’s been able to be at since our last one in September, so it was fun to watch him see how big our Baby Boy is getting. Everything looks great. His heart is pumping steadily at 145 beats per minute (almost 2.5 beats per second). He has moved in the last two months from transverse (laying sideways) to breech (head up by my ribs) to normal delivery position (head down). It’s been interesting to feel his movements in different places as he’s slowly rotated to where he is now.

Blood pressure was a little high at the beginning of my appointment (140/80) so we took it again before we left and it was down in a normal range (130/80). Weight was 88.3 kilos (up 14.3 since 6 week checkup). My urine had a little sugar in it, but I’m guessing that’s from the brownies and ice cream I ate on Monday night.

32 week ultrasound, photo 1. An almost profile view of Baby. The top of his head is on the right side of the photo with his mouth and nose towards the left.

Little Man is growing constantly now. His weight is up to approximately 1949 grams (4 pounds, 5 ounces). Head diameter is roughly 8.16 cm and circumference is about 29.9 cm. His femur is measuring about 6.18 cm.

32 week ultrasound, photo 2. Front view of Baby's face. In the top of the picture, almost centered, is a closed eye. There's also a chubby cheek and the bright white odd shaped-looking thing is his nose.

Overall, the doctor said everything looks great and our next appointment will be in 4 weeks. At that appointment we’ll do a hospital tour, pre-admission paperwork, meet with a midwife and do anything else that will make admission on Baby’s Birthday easier.

Andrea

28-week checkup

Ryan was traveling this week for work, so I went to the checkup appointment by myself. According to the doctor, everything looks good and right on schedule. My blood pressure was 120/60. Weight was 85 kilos (up 11 since 6 week checkup). My urine was clean.

Baby is currently breech-that means his head up by my heart. Stomach, kidneys and bladder are all functioning well and full of amniotic fluid. I was able to hear his heartbeat for the second time. His heartbeat is very strong and steady at 145 bpm.

28 week ultrasound, photo 1. Front view of Baby's face. Top of head on the left side of the picture. You can see the two eye and the nose sockets.

He’s folded in half and had both his hands and feet by his face so no profile view…again.

28 week ultrasound, photo 2. He may not let us see his face, but he's happy to show off his arms, hands and feet! Baby's left elbow is in the top right of the picture and you can see the two arm bones angled down to the left with a fuzzy hand waving 'hi' at the end of his arm. Directly underneath his hand is one of his feet with five perfect little toes. This boy is flexible! On the far left of the photo is a small white shape that looks kind of like a capital letter 'D' laying on its side - that is one of his nostrils.

His head diameter is about 7 cm, head circumference is 24.57 cm and his femur length is roughly 5.52 cm. He weighs about 1227 grams based on his head and abdomen circumference and his femur length.

We leave for the Canary Islands in just a couple days and then we’re home for a few and I leave to go back to Iowa. Lots going on this month!

family and food

We spent the last week in Rome, Italy, visiting my sister, Alicia, as she wraps up her nannying gig. I can’t begin to calculate how many miles we put on our feet and our shoes, but the trip was wonderful.

Since my sister is wrapping up her time as a nanny, the new nanny has arrived, or as he prefers to be called, the manny. He’s our cousin, Lucas, and we actually claim him to be more like an extra brother to us than a cousin. We spent mucho mucho time together as kids and so brother just fits better.

When he arrived on our last day in Rome, we took him to dinner, at our new favorite little restaurant, I Limoncini. The next day he posted on Facebook, “I single handily had the best food in my life last night. America better get it together or I’m not coming back.” The food is THAT good. Fresh olive oil and house wine produced on the family’s farm, as well as all the vegetables straight from the farm. How can the food not be good?

I’ll be putting up a post about the rest of our adventures in Rome, but really just wanted to share a quick photo of the four of us on our way to dinner, albeit not great quality.

Lucas, me, Ryan & Alicia on our way to I Limoncini

To great family, delicious food, and a beautiful city.

Andrea

20-week checkup

20 September 2011

We had the privilege of having Ryan’s parents and sister here for a visit for this checkup. We had an extremely long wait before we saw the doctor, but it was so fun to have them with us and for them to get to see Baby moving.

Good checkup today. My blood pressure was 120/80 and weight was 79.3 kilos (up 4.9 since 6 week checkup). Urine was clean.

20 week ultrasound, photo 1. No denying the gender of this child any longer. He may be camera shy when it comes to his face, but not to his anatomy.

Baby is DEFINITELY a boy. He weighs about 298 grams and his crown to rump length is 13.47cm.

We got to hear his heartbeat for first time (148bpm).

20 week ultrasound, photo 2. He’s growing so much! Diameter of Baby’s head is 4.29cm and circumference is 16.47cm.

We didn’t get many pictures today because Baby was being a mover and a shaker, and a bit camera shy, but we did manage to get a foot measurement.

20 week ultrasound, photo 3. If you look on the right you’ll see his left foot with all five toes. His foot measured 2.96cm.

His organs are all developing just as they should be and other fun things we saw included the lobes of his brain, the four chambers of his heart, eye sockets, jaw (where teeth will start forming soon), arms and LOTS of movement.

We haven’t had a good profile picture in a while so our doctor’s goal is to get a good profile shot during my 25 week checkup. Couldn’t do an appointment at 24 weeks because we’ll be in Rome visiting my sister, Bantergirl.

I will also do my glucose test at my 25 week appointment but the doctor doesn’t seem too concerned at this point, so neither am I.

Stay tuned for some actual belly photos. I should have those up here, shortly.

whoa – this is real

There’s definitely something alive inside of me.

On Saturday, 17 September, I woke up (to go to the bathroom of course) and as I was falling back to sleep, I could feel Baby moving. I put my hand on my stomach and was surprised to actually FEEL the baby move. I thought maybe I was just dreaming or in some almost-sleeping-delirious-state so I didn’t think much of it.

On Sunday, 18 September, as we were laying down and headed off to dreamland, I felt Baby moving so I put my hand on my stomach again and surprise! I COULD feel Baby move. I grabbed Ryan’s hand and put it on my stomach. Baby kicked 3 times and Ryan still couldn’t feel it. He said, “What should it feel like?” So I described it as best as I could. But then Baby stopped kicking and started rolling. I was getting ready to tell Ryan he might have to wait until the next day when he said, “Whoa. That is crazy.” He felt the baby rolling.

This is real. There’s no denying it now.

Simply amazed,

Andrea

16 week ultrasound & checkup

23 August - Had our check up with Dr. Onder and she’s 85% sure it’s a boy. That means she’s pretty sure she saw boy parts, but everything is still pretty small at 16 weeks, so we’ll do a “confirmation check” at our 20-week check up.

I’ve gained exactly 3 kilograms (6.5 pounds) since my first doctors visit. My blood pressure was 110/70.

Baby was curled up a bit so we couldn’t get an exact crown to rump length, but the doctor said right about 10 cm (3.9 inches) and about 128 grams (4.5 ounces). He was moving like crazy, so we were able to get a few decent pictures, but a couple look like I’m growing an alien.

This time we got to see ribs and lots of bones. The doctor also showed us the stomach and bladder (both were black which means they’re full of amniotic fluid). Seeing them show up black means that Baby is ingesting amniotic fluid and that the kidneys are functioning because we could see the bladder was full. We saw the two lobes of his brain as well as the 4 chambers of Baby’s heart.

Here are the pictures from our 16 week ultrasound:

16 week ultrasound, photo 1. Baby's head is partially out of the picture in the top left. You can see the neck and shoulders really well and then the abdomen.

16 week ultrasound, photo 2. This is one of the "alien" photos. Baby's head is almost horizontal in the upper left of the photo. You can see the two lobes of the brain and the eye and nose sockets. Pretty cool if you ask me.

16 week ultrasound, photo 3. This is the second "alien" photo. This child was moving SO much! The head was moving (on the left side of the photo) when the picture was taken, but you can clearly see an arm with a hand on the right side of the photo with a "thumbs up."

16 week ultrasound, photo 4. This is back to a human-looking child. This is a rear view. You can see the head on the left again and legs on the right. the tube-looking thing is the esophagus.

I was feeling quite energetic this week – I got the guest room cleaned up and set up for Ryan’s parents who are coming to visit in a few weeks. Now I just need to have Ryan help me rearrange the office & former guest room, and hang some photos in the guest room and we’ll be all set.

Stay tuned for more posts. Belly pictures coming soon!

Andrea