24 weeks!

It's been a busy month--I can't believe I haven't posted since the 1st! Things have been going well with baby girl, and today we've reached our 24 week milestone! I would like it very much for baby girl to stay inside and incubate for another good 16weeks (well, 15 would be ok too), but it's nice that we've reached the timeframe of viability.

I had the most vivid dream about our baby last night. I dreamed that she was born, and weighed 1.5 lbs (which is about how much she weighs right now), and I was able to take her home (unlike in reality where a 1.5 lb babe would stay in nicu for awhile!). I struggled in this dream to find the right sling, or baby carrying device for her. She was so tiny and I just couldn't get anything to work right for her. We tried all these differnt types of slings, and she just was too tiny for them, and I was afraid she'd fall out! Different friends would stop and try to help me with her, and I just remember feeling like I had 2 left hands when I was holding her. At work (in the real world) I hold babies a lot, and am very comforable with it, and so I was surprised in this dream that I felt so out of sorts!
Also in this dream, Todd and I were taking her to the doctor for her day 2 check up, and they asked me what her name was. I stopped, and realized that we hadn't named her yet! So the rest of the dream was me and Todd talking about names, and trying to decide if our current lead name is the name we really want to use. "Do we really like this name enough? Is this really what we're going to name her??" By the time I woke up, we still hadn't decided on the name, but I think we were leaning towards our current favorite (and yes, I'm going to keep that one quiet!). :)

Funny stuff, dreams are. A bit of my own anxiety coming out perhaps?

She's been a very active girl the past couple weeks. I'm feeling her all the time now, and Todd's felt her a couple times too. It's such a bizarre, fun feeling!

We've started to get some hand-me-down clothes from family & friends, which is so nice. It's been fun to get them washed, and sorted, and maybe this week I'll start to put them in her dresser. Sometimes it's hard to believe that this is really happening...

This month I've also had some reminders of IF, and of all the pain that brings. We've been to a couple functions where there were couples that I know are struggling with IF, and my heart just aches for them. I feel bad for my bump, because I know it hurts to see it, and I can instantly be brought to that back to that same place in my mind. I'm glad that we've been open with our struggle becuase it's allowed others to be open with theirs, and for that, I'm so grateful. I also feel like we've been able to open others' eyes to IF, and I'm glad for that. At work, I'm trying to get IF coverage included in our healthcare plan, and I had 55 other staff members from my floor sign a letter of support for this coverage! My benefits manager was really supportive, and has asked our insurance folks for a quote to add this coverage for 2009. I'll be super excited if it really happens!

So there you go! A month's worth of updates all in one day! We've got an OB appt a week from Tuesday, and I'll be doing the yummy glucose tolerance test. Oh boy. Can't wait for that!

Thanks for checking in. Hope you all are doing well too!

Love,
Julie & baby girl

Happy Updates

Hi all,

Thought I'd pop in and give ya'all a little update as to what's going on with the 3 of us these days.

Baby girl has been moving like crazy, and I'm finally feeling her more regularly! It's been so much fun to feel her move & kick! She hasn't been strong enough for Todd to feel her yet, but I hope that's coming soon so that he can feel how awesome it is too!

My belly is really looking pregnant these days. You can't tell so much in my scrubs at work, but when I'm in regular clothes it's definately out there! It's fun to look pregnant now. Everyone has been so great, so excited for us, and I'm just so happy that all of you are able to join us in this part of our journey. I have to admit that it's much more enjoyable than the first part (the IF part) was!

Todd's been busy getting the crib and other furniture ready for the nursery. It's so strange to see a crib in our old office! I love it!

Today is our 4th year anniversary, and we're off to dinner. It's been a wonderful 4 years, with a wonderful man, and I can't wait to bring our daughter into our lives!

Thanks for checking in on us,
Love you all,
Julie

And for all of you belly watchers...here it is:

Ultrasound pics

Here are our pics from our last ultrasound, when the babe was about 17 1/2 weeks old. Sorry it took me so long to get them up!

I love the feet! (the shot is looking up at the bottom of her feet, as if she's standing on a piece of glass with the camera below).

Enjoy!

Julie, Todd, and baby girl

It's a...

Girl! The radiologist didn't get a perfect look between the legs, but said with "high 80's percent certainty" that our little nugget of love is a girl!

The other, most wonderful part of our ultrasound showed that our daughter appears perfectly healthy. Initially when we looked at her, she was doing a headstand (super cute!) and then moved all over the place. It's just amazing to see how active she is! All of her limbs measured appropriately, and her head & chest & abdomen looked great. We got a great view of the 4 chambers of her heart, watching the blood flow through the valves. It was amazing. We could see the fluid in her stomach and bladder, and watched the blood flow through the umbilical cord. We also have a great photo of her little feet that I'll have Todd post up here later.

After our ultrasound we went to our OB's for our monthly visit. We listened to our babe's heartbeat, which was a strong 155 beats per minute. Our OB also said that later in the pregnancy she could do another u/s at the office to be certain of the sex if we want. She thinks we're probably safe to plan for a girl, but if we want more certainty then an u/s would be fine. So we'll see. We go back to the Ob in another month--May 6th.

Anyway, we're so happy and thrilled to know that our baby is healthy. It's just a bonus to know that we have a little girl on the way!

Thanks for checking in with us,
Love,
Proud parents of a DAUGHTER,
Julie & Todd

Ultrasound Update

Just wanted to let you know that our ultrasound was moved up to April 10th--this Thursday! Hopefully we'll find out if we're having a boy or a girl, as long as the little peanut isn't too shy! :)

I can't wait!

Love,
Julie

OB appt

Todd and I had our 2nd OB appt this past Tuesday. We went over all of our lab results and our last u/s with our OB, and everything is looking really good. Then she had me lay down on the table, pulled out a doppler, and smeared a bunch of goo on my tummy. After a minute or so, she found the right place, and we heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time! It was so amazing! It was fast, maybe 160-170 beats per minute, and sounded great! Todd does a really good impression of how it sounded. :)

We talked a little about the next appt--which is the big one! We get to have our anatomy ultrasound before our appt, and that's where we should be able to find out the sex of our baby! (assuming our babe is not too camera shy!) I made our appt for the morning of April 11th. You can be sure I'll post the results here as soon as we find out!

It's nice not to have real frequent appts right now, especially after making so many trips to the doctor when we were trying to get pregnant! We've been working on the house, or more accurately, Todd's been working on the house. He tore down our scary, steep old staircase, and is making a new, safer staircase. It will make it much more safe to go down to the basement to do laundry as I get bigger, and then have a babe with me!

I've been feeling much less tired now too. They say in your second trimester, pg women often get this burst of energy..I think I'm starting to feel that! I've gotten more done in the past week than I did in the past 10 weeks! It's a nice change.

Thanks for checking in,
I know there's fewer updates now, but I'll do my best to update when something new comes up!

Love,
Julie

Hi there

Hey friends,
Not much more to report at this point, but I thought I'd say a quick hello! We got our official test results back from our ultrasound last week, and everything looks good! :) Things have been going well...I'm starting to show a bit--mostly it's just my uterus pushing my little pudge out, but it looks like a belly and I'm gonna show it off! haha My lovely mom took me shopping this week and we found some really cute and, more importantly, COMFORTABLE clothes--thank goodness for elastic! It's so much better than squeezing into tight jeans.

I did have a day of bleeding again over the weekend. I had to go in for another u/s just to make sure everything was ok, (thankfully it was) and the bleeding has stopped since. Our little babe was bouncing around, sitting kind of cross-legged, & looking particularly darling too!

Anyhow, I've had a fun week of telling folks that I'm pregnant--especially with some of my friends at work who knew about our IF struggles. And even though there were times during all of this that I regretted being so open with my IF, overall it's been a good thing--I feel so loved by all of you and have been so amazed with the generosity of people. Thank you!

Here's a question for you fellow ex-IF'ers: when you were telling people you were pg, did you ever feel like you wanted to disclaim your "previous" IF? Like, no really, it's really exciting for us...or " it took us a while" or something else to say that it wasn't just any easily achieved pregnancy? Just wondering...I sometimes want to add that disclaimer, and I wonder how common it is among IF'ers? (not to say that any pregnancy isn't exciting, but I think you know what I mean...)

Have a great week everyone. And btw, we've got our 2nd OB appt next Tuesday.

Love,
Julie