Weekend Getaway

Happy First Anniversary Paul & Bonnie!! To celebrate my sister and brother-in-law's anniversary, Pat & I along with Paul's best friend and his wife went to Duluth for the weekend. We stayed at a great place on the shores of Lake Superior and despite the occasional downpours enjoyed our weekend away. I had another ob appt last Monday. Baby's heartbeat was 153 and the midwife said I am progressing well. Baby is moving like crazy. It's fun to watch her move around as my stomach pokes in every direction. She's definitely a night owl like me! Less than 15 weeks to our due date and I'm getting anxious to decorate the nursery. Hopefully our crib comes in soon!

Expanding Buddha-Belly

The "BUDDHA-BELLY" is growing. It has really popped a presence the last couple weeks. Here are two pictures of said exhibit. Exhibit A (bottom) was taken 9.6.07 (21.6 weeks) and Exhibit B (top) was taken 9.18.07 (23.4 weeks). Can you notice the difference from my last buddha-belly posting?! As you can see, my favorite sweats still fit comfortably -- yea!
Baby is moving, kicking and turning quite a bit. I love feeling her move! I'm pretty sure I felt her hiccupping for the first time Saturday night, 9.15.07 -- that was pretty cool. This Friday I will be 24 weeks pregnant! 16 weeks to go...cross my fingers not much more than that. : )

It's a Girl!!

For those of you who endured Patrick's entry, don't you just love his sense of humor?!
Let me translate his jibberish. We're having a girl!! The ultrasound technician looked a couple different times and said she is fairly confident that we are having a girl. When she announced her findings, I felt tears of joy roll down the right side of my face (as my head was turned to face the monitor). Obviously, Pat and I would be thrilled with either a boy or a girl; it was just such a special moment that I will never forget.
Above right are two profile pictures of our little one steadily growing inside me. She is moving around quite a bit now and is especially active mid-afternoon and late evening.
At bottom right is a blown-up ultrasound picture of her foot. Her five tiny toes are so precious! I am really looking forward to being a mom and meeting our little girl. We have a name picked out but we are not sharing until the big day. We want to give everyone something more to look forward to!

This is where the baby lives.

(This part of the blog was written by the paternal half of the couple-Pat)
I would like to start by saying I am writing this blog to fulfill my contractual obligations to my wife. When she wanted to do this blog thing she originally said that we could each write one. So of course I objected, I reasoned that the observations that I would be putting in here could only get me in major trouble (how much weight I have noticed she has gained, how moody she has been, etc) so after about an hour of protest we compromised to one entry.... so here you have it.
This is actually kind of cool because Brenda had an ultrasound yesterday, so I get to tell you all about the details (from my perspective).
Brenda and I have been debating for some time about whether we should find out the sex of our baby. I was on the side of science, technology, appropriate planning, and general common sense. Brenda on the other side was on the side of "old-fashioned" stubborness. I will spare you most of the details but I actually won this debate. We actually did decide to find out the sex. (For those of you who know me I usually let Brenda have her way because she is spoiled and it is just easier but not this time, so this is a big deal).
So we get to the hospital and Brenda has had about 4 gallons of water because they told her to do that. I asked the tecnician why they make them drink so much water and she says to me.."it's to help see the baby better"...well duhh, thanks for that info... I thought it was just so you could watch my wife writhe in agony. (I never really got a straight answer on that.)
So Brenda gets this jelly stuff smeared all over her belly (that's where the baby lives) and then the technician goes to work with her magic wand, periodically stopping to tell us that some blob on the screen is a leg, a lip, hand, head, etc. Seriously she could have told me anything it all looked like a plate of scrambled eggs to me. According to her though everything looked good.
Then came the moment we had been waiting for, and boy were we surprised......two heartbeats...just kidding. That would have been crazy though!
But thenvb fogr toj tllhe Girfhrl aqwdnd swwhe saifdgd thwenw Boy no for how doesrtue!
So needless to say we are both super excited! Hope you enjoyed my blog.

Dreams

Two of my friends told me about some crazy dreams they had when they were pregnant. I can now relate but will not share those dreams on this site. I will however, share the two dreams I have had about our baby. The first dream I remember occurred last Monday night. I dreamt that I gave birth to twin daughters! They were absolutey beautiful and wrapped in pink blankets. Names were never mentioned in the dream and as much as Patrick wishes it were true, twins are not growing inside of me. The second dream I had was last Wednesday. I dreamt that we had a baby boy! As I was holding him, I turned to show Patrick our son (as if he wouldn't have seen him yet at that point) and I said so this is -- -- and said the exact name we have picked out for a boy. Is this a sign that we are continuing the Jennissen streak??!! We shall see...in 20.1 weeks!

Feeling Pregnant at 19.3 weeks!

The book I am reading was correct...baby & uterus have popped out over the last 3 weeks! I am now feeling pregnant. :) Last Monday I experienced the most uncomfortable feeling of pregnancy thus far. I was driving to one of my clinics and suddenly had some pain in my upper abdomen. Once parked outside the clinic, it took me 10 minutes to get a grip and put on a face to do my call. Once back in my car, I called my ob's nurse just to make sure my inkling of what was going on was correct and that I had no need to worry (sorry Jen, I could have called you!). She confirmed that my ab muscles were stretching to make room for my growing uterus. Oww!!! It hurt really bad. I popped two Tylenol and the pain diminished then resurfaced 6 hours later. Call me a wuss, but I had tears in my eyes it hurt so bad. I told Pat that if it hurts that bad for my ab muscles to stretch how the heck am I gonna get through labor?! I'm pretty sure I'll be more than pleased to have an epidural. So long to my 2-pack and any chance of having a 4-pack ever again. : )

We have our ultrasound next Monday. We're both really excited to see how baby has progressed since the initial ultrasound at 6.6 weeks!

Baby's Moving!!

Baby is strong enough to make me notice as I felt him or her move for the first time while lying in bed a couple weeks ago. It's a strange feeling as its not a definite "kick" or "nudge" you hear about later in pregnancy. It's more like a brushing on my insides between my belly and pubic bone. It's an incredible feeling! I'm starting to feel baby move more and more -- mostly while I'm lying in bed at night. However, baby said hello this morning while I was blowdrying my hair too! : )