Just checking in....

Not much going on. Getting ready for Christmas, going to parties, etc.

No news on the baby front either. I don't have my next appointment until 1/5/09. Thank goodness for my doppler. Baby's heart is still beating nice and strong.

My friend Christi, who lives in Mississippi, came to hang out with me today. We've been friends since like the 5th grade, but she's moved off and we rarely see each other. We went to the Woodlands Mall today, shopped, ate and laughed. She has a baby girl on the way, due in February. C and I are going to try to make it out to MS around that time to meet her new one. She already has 4 kids...yes, she's having #5! I can't even imagine. She's a great mom and I am sure she will teach me lots of things when my little one gets here.

Speaking of, here's what's going on with baby this week:

Your pregnancy: 16 weeks
See the big picture
How your baby's growing:Get ready for a growth spurt. In the next few weeks, your baby will double his weight and add inches to his length. Right now, he's about the size of an avocado: 4 1/2 inches long (head to rump) and 3 1/2 ounces. His legs are much more developed, his head is more erect than it has been, and his eyes have moved closer to the front of his head. His ears are close to their final position, too. The patterning of his scalp has begun, though his locks aren't recognizable yet. He's even started growing toenails. And there's a lot happening inside as well. For example, his heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, and this amount will continue to increase as your baby continues to develop.

I hope everybody has a great Christmas. I will update after my next appointment. Happy Holidays!!

Last night it started snowing around 8:15 and kept it up most of the night! We woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland this morning!

Unfortunately, it was bright and sunny by this afternoon and it's nearly all gone. It was fun while it lasted!!

My nurse called last night with the results from my bloodwork part of the NT scan I had last week (to check for Down's and other birth defects). Everything came back really good! What a relief! I am still loving my doppler and can't get enough of hearing this little one's heartbeat. It is normally staying in the 160's.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We are staying at the Hyatt Regency in Houston tomorrow night for Calvin's company Christmas party, can't wait to get away!!

Week 14

Your pregnancy: 14 weeks
See the big picture
How your baby's growing:This week's big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.

Hello Blogger World!

Hi there! We wanted to create this blog so that we would be able to go back and remember everything about this pregnancy. We also wanted a way to be able to update friends and family on how things are progressing. Hope you enjoy our story...

We got our first positive pregnancy test on September 29, 2008! You can barely see the 2nd line!

Of course, the line was so darn light, we had to do a couple more, you know, just to be sure!!

The next morning I called my dr. and went in for a blood test the next day. They wanted my HCG level to be at least 100...mine was 549! So far so good! They scheduled me to come in for a repeat test to make sure that my numbers were going up. Your numbers should double every 48 hours. My next test was 4 days later, so we were hoping for them to be around 2200...it ended up being over 10,000! Next on the list was to set up an ultrasound for 6w2d to check for a heartbeat. My appointment was originally scheduled for October 14, but I had to end up going in the day before because I was having some bleeding. I just knew things were over. I called my friend Donna to go with me. (We were trying to keep it a secret from my mom because we wanted to surprise her on her birthday.) To my surprise, as soon as she turned on the ultrasound machine, there was a little heart just beating away. It was beating at 111 bpm. I couldn't believe it. This is the pic from our first u/s:

Tiny little pic, but it's my favorite! I am seeing a specialist, so I get to go every week for u/s! The bleeding only lasted that one day. That weekend was my mom's birthday and we were so excited to finally be able to tell family! My friend Christi gave me a great idea on how to surprise her. I had a picture cake made with the u/s pic on it and it said "Baby Skinner Arriving June 2009". This is what it looked like, although the picture makes it look like it has lumps all in it. It was a great way to tell her!

Ok, so the next few pics are just from various u/s:

8w

9w (see the arms & legs?)

At my 9w appointment I had to do a glucose tolerance test, I passed! After this appointment I was released to my high-risk OB. I had my 10w appointment and u/s with her. They did print me some pics, but this was my first abdominal u/s and the pictures were so fuzzy and unclear, I didn't bother with scanning them in. My ob is Dr. Adam and so far, I like her. She is German and a little hard to understand. She is not all warm and fuzzy, instead she is very honest and straight to the point...I like that. I will be on Lovenox injections (blood thinner) throughout my pregnancy because of a couple of clotting disorders that I have. If I wasn't on them, it would cause clots in the cord...which is not good. At all. I hate the injections, but I do what I have to do. Instead of weekly appointments, I will now go for appointments every 3 weeks. I think she will continue to do lots of u/s though!

A couple of weeks ago I bought a home doppler so I could hear the baby's heartbeat whenever I wanted. I am loving it. As soon as I figure out how, I will upload a sound clip.

12-4-08

My 2nd ob appointment with Dr. Adam. I am 13w4d. The baby is measuring right on track. Here's a quick pic. The baby is facing toward us, head on the right You can see both of it's eyes and an arm up above it's head.

At this appointment they did what is called and NT Scan. It's part u/s and part bloodwork. It checks for Down's Syndrom and Trisomy markers. We won't have the b/w results back for about a week. On the u/s they do a measurement of the nuchal fold, which is some type of measurement of the neck and they check a few other things. They want the measurement to be below 3mm and our's was 1.2mm. The dr. said all looks good and on the u/s she did not see any type of markers for any disorder. I did find out something cool while the u/s tech was showing us things. I noticed that they had some 4d pictures on the wall and I asked her if they had a 4d u/s machine in the office. She said all of their machines are 4d and she switched it over to show me. On 4d it mostly picks up tissue and we are still a little too early to see much. You could see the head a little, but could not make out any facial features. She said when I get closer to 20w we will be able to make out more and she would print me some pics. My next appt. isn't until January 5, because of the holidays. I am hoping time will fly by until then!