16 weeks...

so there it is. the 16 week photo. the four month mark. that was my best attempt at a smile.

it's been a long week. and rougher weekend than we had anticipated.

monday night we went to the texans vs titans game. i don't want to discuss it. or yesterday's game for that matter.

we headed for tyler late tuesday morning. we were suppose to have breakfast with jojo and clan, but i couldn't pick up a prescription until later in the morning so we had to cancel. :(

the week was filled with family. it was fun, but not at all as relaxing as i thought it would be. it never is though. why is that? because it's not your own bed you sleep in at night? that's all i can come up with. because we didn't actually DO anything eventful. in fact, i napped. a lot.

we came home on friday. took the photo above. then headed out for some christmas lights. still lots of people out and about. lights overpriced. none purchased.

saturday went looking for lights again. all overpriced. i'll just wait until after christmas as usual. spent the rest of the day pulling weeds and old mulch out of the front flower bed. justin dug out the crepe myrtle i dislike. and planted my foxtail palm i've managed to keep alive since spring (i know you're as surprised as i am). houston garden center has their 70% off sale now, so we picked up a windmill palm to also plant in the flower bed. i'm not sure if there really is a such thing as a windmill palm, or if the guy we asked was just screwing with us. there was no tag on it. i will google later.

sunday we put the 12 foot "frosty" up in the yard. justin put the lights on the roof. i put the tree up and decorated it. and then i got a horrible headache and vomited. twice.

which brings us to today. work. nothing new.

and later this week i'm going to see 2 of my besties. austin here i come. that's kind of a warning.

boy or girl...

everybody is asking if we know what it is yet or if we plan to find out.

no, we do not know what it is yet. you typically find out the gender at the 20 week anatomy scan (assuming baby cooperates). the last ultrasound was at 13 weeks. it's still too soon to tell for sure. i've heard we could've asked for a guess. but i don't want a guess. i want to know.

which brings me to the next question...

yes, we plan to find out. i had originally wanted to be surprised. everything on my registries is gender-neutral (because i'm a preparer). what better time to be surprised than when we don't already have a million of one type of clothes, as would happen with a second child?! but justin would really like to know.

i'm going to ramble on for a bit here, because i know all of you probably have an opinion.

we could have decided that justin would know, and i would not. but justin would not be able to breathe a word to a single soul. which i know he's certainly capable of handling. but even he could slip up and say he or her to me... and if i'd made it all the way to like 8 months and he slipped, i'd be devastated.

but justin made a good point... i can't wait for anything. and he's right. if i don't have to wait for it, i'm not gonna.

and of course i thought well why can't justin just do this for me? but i decided i'm just not going to push on the issue. he's not carrying the kid. so anything i can do to facilitate baby/daddy bonding comes before me getting my way. again. ;)

so here's the plan...
i will be 20 weeks on christmas day. anytime that week is acceptable. i called today to schedule the appointment... wednesday, december 23rd. and since it's so close to christmas, we've decided to ask the technician to write down the gender on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. and we will open it on christmas day. the family gets together on christmas eve. but christmas day is just the two of us. it will be awesome. assuming i can wait until christmas morning...

nuchal translucency...

the things i'm learning. one of which is that no two ultrasound techs are the same.

here are the ultrasound pics... all are profile views... heartbeat is 161 bpm... and we got to see the baby swallowing (neat).




the baby was obviously big enough to take the measurements this time. and it was crazy active... bouncing all over the place! they measured the fluid in the baby's neck, squeezed as much blood as possible out of my finger tip, and weighed me. all those things plus age go into calculating the baby's risk for down syndrome, other trisomies, and other chromosomal abnormalities. i think. should know our "risk" within 10 business days. we're confident that all is fine. we struggled with whether or not to do the screening. but most people we talked with said they weren't all that worried about it, they just did the screening because you get another ultrasound. justin was totally on board with that.

12 weeks...

i figured 12 weeks would be a good time to start these pictures. but let me be very clear here... the only "belly" you're seeing is the one that's been there the whole time, but that i can no longer suck in. in case you were wondering.


i'll post a new one every 4 weeks... until i'm a hot air balloon... then every 2 weeks, i guess.

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