Status Update: Two Months After Mega Baby

I didn't write about this when G2 was born, possibly because having two kids dramatically reduced my capacity to do anything but take care of two kids, but our son was a big newborn. Not scary big, but big. Nine pounds, three ounces--90th percentile-big.

Interestingly, we were given no indication during Hollie's pregnancy that this was the case (a marked contrast to LG's time in utero). He measured right-on-the-money average at every single checkup; until the day he was to be born, when a concerned nurse suggested a last-minute ultrasound to check if he might be on the large side. One scan later, she estimated his weight at 9 lbs, 6 oz; remarkably close to the truth, given how inaccurate full-term ultrasounds usually are.

All of that said, he didn't look big. When you compare pictures of LG and G2 at one-day old, there's not much difference.

Yeah, so I see some differences now, but in the first 24 hours, I would've sworn it was the same kid.

Fast forward two months, and they still look remarkably similar. I'd often wondered whether or not my kids would resemble each other, mostly because my brothers and I didn't (at least not when we were kids. Now that we're all bald, there's no doubt we're related.)

And that brings us to his two-month checkup. Four shots, one oral vaccine, and couple of measurements. For all his initial bigness, and as much as he seems bigger that I remember LG being, he's nearly average.

For those of you who don't speak metric, that's 12 lbs 1 oz, or 58th percentile. 

Similarly, his length is 23 1/2 inches, for 53rd percentile.

And for all the other milestones that matter, things are right on track. One thing I don't remember from when LG was an infant was how quickly certain things happen. For instance, one day G2 wasn't tracking faces, and the next day he was. One day he didn't really grab things, and the next day he could. I remember being aware of transitions with LG in a way that I'm not with G2, and I don't know whether or not the in-between spots were in my imagination.

Or maybe he's transitioning from one milestone to the next while I'm watching his sister. He's only been around two months, and they've already worked out the art of misdirection.

Who? Me?

Baby/Mama Drama, or the Lack Thereof

If this pregnancy has been characterized by anything, it's a distinct lack of drama. Sure, you could chalk my lack of pregnancy-related posts up to the fact that the blog is about three years old, and I post less often. Or it could be that we haven't had a new ultrasound appointment every four weeks. Or that no one has flipped out about this kid being too big, or too small, or not having enough room, or whatever other thing will drive us nuts for a few days. And that lack of drama isn't coming from us. Hollie and I were fully prepared to indulge in every crazy swing of medical opinion the second time around.

Thankfully, the docs at Penn Medicine seem to be largely sane, reasonable people who don't freak us out every other appointment.

That is, until yesterday, when a slightly overzealous, overly excitable student midwife sent us to the hospital when Hollie said that maybe, perhaps, possibly she's felt our son kick moderately less frequently than he had been doing in the previous few weeks.

Evidently, according to the midwife we've been seeing most frequently, the magic words are "less frequently." So off we went to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

It should be said: As much as we hoped to just be on our way after this routine appointment, there were significant advantages to a brief sojourn at the hospital, such as:

1. I haven't actually been to this hospital before, despite its location about four blocks from my office. Much like our one-week-from-the-end false alarm during LG's time in Casa de Hollie, it let us preview the hospital at a slightly less stressful time.
2. I now know where to park. Score.
3. I now know where the maternity ward is located.
4. I now know where the visitor's lounge is located.
5. I now know where to get Potbelly subs.
6. I now, finally, have an ultrasound picture of our son.

Boom.

It's hard to tell if he's sucking his thumb or trying to punch the ultrasound wand in the face.

The hospital monitored the baby's heartrate, Hollie's heartrate, and the sporadic contractions she's been feeling for almost two weeks. Following those tests, she had an ultrasound. It should be said, the purpose of this ultrasound was NOT so we could get a picture. But I wasn't going to pass up the chance to grab one, and the tech helpfully obliged. Many thanks, goofy HUP ultrasound tech!

Oh, did I mention the tech was a little weird? Yeah, we had a nice little chat about Obama's mother, anthropology, the tech's family who lives in Kenya (the tech was Caucasian, it should be noted), the fact that she thinks amniotic fluid viewed via ultrasound looks like a star-filled sky, and other things I'm totally forgetting because the conversation was all over the place.

All in all, the trip to the hospital took about two hours and cost us $7 for parking. But we got a picture and a hospital preview, so whether or not it was absolutely necessary, it was totally worth it.

20 Week Ultrasound: We're having a...

It wasn't that long ago that I posted about the newest addition to our family unit, but we've been living with the reality of our expanding brood for quite a bit longer. Which means we've waited almost five months to learn whether we were going to have a boy or a girl.

Yesterday morning, we found out. And now I share with you the ultrasound that revealed it to us.

Apparently we're having a Mr. Burns.

Okay, so I don't have an actual ultrasound to show you. Chances are good you've seen a million of them already, and they all look the same anyway. There's a very good reason that I've got nothing of substance to show for the two hours we spent at South Jersey Radiology this morning (and no, it's not because of the ultrasound tech who-will-not-be-named, although she did make a brief appearance).

Despite the very best efforts of a very nice tech, Little Geek 2.0 squirmed, kicked, bobbed, weaved and swam (yes, swam) out from under the wand at every opportunity. Through some quirk of biology, Hollie is pregnant with Aquaman's newest sidekick. This was not entirely unexpected, since at her last OB/GYN appointment, you could literally hear the baby "swoosh" out of the way of the doppler device they use to hear the heartbeat.

"But Matt," you may be asking, "Isn't it possible this tech (however nice) was just as incompetent as the  one you encountered last time?" I might've been inclined to agree, if I didn't watch the little bugger juke and pivot for several minutes at the end of the exam.

And the tech, whatever her skill level, actually managed to get the important information like heartbeat, face, limb and organ development, and all the rest.

And although the squirming caused her initially to express skepticism about her ability to tell us whether we were having a boy or a girl, halfway through the exam she shouted, "Ha! I know what you're having!" The excitement of pinning down a shot of the organ in question evidently was too much for her to hold in.

But she did hold it in until I got into the room. Upon which time she didn't have to say anything, because no sooner did I enter the room than our son somersaulted and flashed a spread eagle in front of the wand before kicking off one side of the womb and out of the way.

With form like that, the boy parts were kind of hard to miss.

So there you have it. Little Geek 2.0 is a boy! The rummage sale for two-years-worth of pink clothes will begin momentarily.

P.S. For the record, they suggest his weight is currently 13 oz. Given our previous experience, I estimate this places his actual weight somewhere between 2 oz and 30 lbs.

I suck at blogging! i.e. The last 2 weeks in brief

You have the best of intentions when you start a project like this, but then life gets in the way. Excuses aren't much fun to read, though, so I'll just cover the last couple of weeks in highlight form. Scroll to your favorite bullet point and read what interests you!

1. Baby Showers: Not just for ladies anymore.
Two weekends ago, my parents threw a baby shower for us, and the whole thing was quite nice. (Hollie's parents threw a shower for us a few weeks before that, and I mentioned some of the gifts we received back in this post. It was the local shower, and thus the one all our friends came to.)

Among other things, my mom made us a diaper cake. What is a diaper cake, you ask? It's a lot less gross than it sounds.

Taking a cue from the pattern on the pack-and-play we registered for, my mom decided the theme for the event would be owls. Many, many owls. To paraphrase Zoolander... Owls. So hot right now.

She also wrote a couple of quizzes for attendees: one that matched superheroes to their secret identities (nailed it); one that tested Peanuts knowledge (Hollie cleaned up); another matching baby animal names to their adult counterparts (Hollie and I tied Edit: Hollie got a perfect score; I got three wrong. Oops!); and a final test on celebrity baby names. I did not do well on the last one. My great-Aunt Nancy though? Apparently she either has an eidetic memory or covertly studies US Weekly while sitting at her booth at craft shows.

On top of that event, my coworkers pulled off the amazing feat of surprising me with a baby shower. My boss had been surreptitiously emailing the entire music school to set up what she referred to as a "Man Shower." The inappropriateness of that title notwithstanding, she really did surprise me. I had no idea what was going down, despite the fact that my entire office emptied out around me to prepare for it last Thursday. There was great food, and folks showed up from all six branches of the school. Some former coworkers even made it out. It feels weird to say that I was moved by the entire thing, but it was just such an extraordinarily nice surprise.

2. Diagnosis Mega-Baby: Not so Much
Shifting gears to events not-at-all-that-surprising, our daughter's status as Mega-Baby has been downgraded to Possibly-Long-Limbed-But-Otherwise-Normal-Baby. But that's not as much fun to say. On Thursday, we had what I think was our sixth ultrasound. I'll let that sink in a minute before I continue.

This particular ultrasound took place at the hospital, much like the last one. We didn't get the same awesome tech as last time, but this much-younger tech seemed pretty experienced nonetheless. We were in the waiting room for about 20 minutes, but the ultrasound itself took about five. These results confirmed the prognosis of the last visit. Normal baby, normal fluids, and all is right with the world. You know, aside from the additional three specialist visits and all the accompanying time and cost that entailed. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, but still irritating. If this is the first time you've heard about this visit, the mundane nature of it meant I didn't really give it much thought after it was over, especially given that the office "Man Shower" happened the same day.

The most amusing part of the visit, though, came at the end. Our ultrasound tech was shadowed by a trainee, as noted by her jacket with the words "Jefferson Ultrasound Trainee" emblazoned on the back. (Sidebar: How cool is the word "emblazoned"? I've always loved it.) After she finished, the first tech asked Hollie if it would be okay if the trainee took a few pictures. Hollie agreed, since we had to wait for a doctor's consultation anyway.

After all the ultrasounds we've been through, I'm pretty sure either Hollie or I could have taken better ultrasounds than this trainee. But that's fine, that's why she's training. That aside, I have a word of advice for all medical professionals, in training or otherwise. If you want to instill a basic level of confidence in your patients, maybe it would be a good idea to take all the Silly Bands off your wrist. I'm just saying.

3. Grease was the Muffled, Hard-to-Hear Word
Finally, the day after the ultrasound, we took our niece, Alissa, to see a local production of Grease. We had been planning this for a while, since a friend of ours, Jessica, is playing Frenchy. But in the days leading up to the show, it occurred separately to Hollie and me that Grease is not the most family-friendly of shows.

But we'd already bought tickets, and we figured that a lot of the questionable content would go over Alissa's head. She's 9-and-a-half, and pretty bright, but we hoped that the lights and sound of the experience would be enough to keep her entertained without catching on to the risque nature of the content.

It turns out we didn't need to worry. All of the sung innuendo was swallowed up by poor sound design, canned music that was louder than the singers, and singers who were too distracted by their own voices to bother enunciating. And the spoken profanity was usually crushed by somebody stepping on someone else's line.

I should point out that Alissa really enjoyed the show, and despite the above critique, the whole experience was pretty entertaining for me as well, although probably not in the way the director and actors intended. The choreography was pretty good, and the actors really threw themselves into it, something I know I'd have struggled with had I been on stage.

And Jessica did a really good job as Frenchy. If a show could somehow have been built around Frenchy, Rizzo, Doody and Sonny, I think it would've been pretty successful. Thankfully, I'm not the only one who noticed that Jessica was a standout in the cast. You're in print now, Jess. Is that your first review?

In closing, hopefully I can get my act together and write some more. I have off all next week, and a bunch of projects are in the pipeline before this baby arrives. Here's hoping I remember to tell you about all of it.

Ultrasound, Part III or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust Charts

I didn't get into this in my last ultrasound post, mostly because it didn't come to light until after I hit "publish post," but at the time we got that ultrasound, our doctor decided that not only wasn't our baby too small, but we were cursed by a condition I will hitherto refer to as Mega-Baby. She thought this was a pretty big deal, in a not-very-good sense, so she referred us to a specialist at our hospital to see just how Mega this Baby is.

This, of course, had us a bit concerned, although not overly so. Big babies run in my family. I was 8 lbs 4 oz (around 85 percentile); my dad was 9 lbs 11 oz (I think that's what my mom told me. If so, that's well above the 90 percentile). Hollie had crazy long legs as an infant, and given that the weight they come up with in utero is based on various length measurements, it's possible the weight they gave us wasn't even accurate.

But any referral to a specialist makes you feel a little uneasy, especially in the hours leading up to the visit. What if the baby really IS too big? What then? What if there's too much amniotic fluid, another worry foisted on us by the last ultrasound? Lots of what ifs, and not many answers.

So it was with some concern that we visited the hospital today. We also didn't know exactly what the exam would entail. Pretty much the only things we've experienced up to this point have been ultrasounds and dopplers. What else is there? It turns out that there's not much else. Unless you count an ultrasound tech with several decades of experience. And it turns out that makes a big difference.

Long story short, everything is absolutely fine. The tech was super-nice and explained absolutely everything she was measuring as she measured it. Transverse cranial view, lateral cranial view, kidneys, heart, spine, brain, etc. The only thing out of the ordinary? When she began measuring the legs, and I quote, "Wow! Those are some really long legs!"

Presuming the weight estimates they use hold true for a girl with very long legs, our daughter is currently 3 lbs, 11 oz (1673 grams for you metric folk). According to this handy chart, that places her just above the 75 percentile, and well within the normal range. Man, I love charts.
The lesson learned here? The medical establishment, like any other field of study, involves just as much guesswork as hard fact. You do the best you can, make the recommendations you think are right, and try not to freak out the people you're trying to help. Although that last part is less a lesson for me, and more a lesson for anyone currently involved in the medical profession. You hear that, guys? Stop freaking me out!

As with any ultrasound, though, it means I have more pictures to share. Here's one one of her face in profile. While we were watching the tech take this picture, the baby open and closed her mouth a few times. It was pretty cool, although Hollie seems to think she was yelling at us to stop taking her picture. Ask her to do her impression of the kid. I'm sure that won't embarrass her at all. Then, as the tech was trying to get a look at Hollie's anatomy, the baby stuck her foot right in the path of the wand. Watch out! Mega-Baby foot!

Good times.

Ultrasound, Part II - The Ultrasoundening

We've been looking forward to the week 32 ultrasound ever since the first shot at finding out whether our kid is a boy or girl met with a resounding "Uh... I think it's a girl?" Those of you keeping score at home may recall that we are sitting at about 28 weeks right now, so we've still got a few weeks until that confirmation.

At least, we did have a few weeks to go, right up until yesterday when during a routine visit the doctor became concerned that Hollie's fundal height (yay for pregnancy terminology!) hadn't changed since her last visit earlier this month. In layman's terms, the doc was concerned that the baby hadn't grown much, if at all, in the last three weeks. As this is a cause for concern, the doc ordered an ultrasound to double check that everything is progressing as it should.

Now, this really should be no big deal, right? Doc find something she wants to check, she checks it. That's how it should work. I know from experience that when the doctor made this observation, she and Hollie were sitting in an exam room no more than 15 feet from an ultrasound machine. Heck, they've got a little ultrasound they can wheel right into the exam room. See a potential problem; check for confirmation. Seems like a fairly straightforward process.

And it would be, except that our health insurance, which changed about three months ago, now doesn't cover fetal ultrasounds at the OB/GYN office. It only covers ultrasounds at the radiology clinic half a mile away. Which requires a separate appointment. And a referral. And a separate co-pay. And at least a day of waiting to find out if, in fact, OUR BABY IS TOO SMALL! (Incidentally, no one every explained what we would do if this was actually the case. Are there fetal steroids? Fetal protein powder? Tiny barbells surgically implanted in the womb?)

I can rant now because I know that everything is fine. The benefit of hindsight allows me to be angry at the system that let us stew for 24 hours rather than provide answers that were literally at our physician's fingertips. But seriously, how much sense does any of this make? My mom's a nurse; I should ask her.

In any case, we were thankfully able to schedule an ultrasound for first thing this morning. The next worry is that we'll end up with the same tech from the first go round, who didn't exactly inspire confidence in this particular medical establishment.

I sling a fair amount of sarcasm in this here blog, but I'd like to press pause on the snark for a second to say that our tech this morning was an absolute pleasure. I can't speak for Hollie, and all the poking and prodding that likely occurred before I was allowed into the room, but this tech was everything that our previous tech was not. She was polite, friendly, knowledgeable and reassuring. She gave us every assurance that this particular set of ultrasound measurements were clear and accurate.

So yes, our baby is growing (if anything, the baby is a bit bigger than you'd expect for 27 weeks and 6 days. 3.4 pounds! Apparently, that's about the right size for 29 weeks and 3 days. Take that, fundal measurements!). Yes, all the right parts are there. And yes, she is, with as much certainty as an ultrasound can provide, a girl.

And here is her face.
I realize it's a bit hard to make out in a still image, but trust me, this is a face. It's easier to see when you've watched the live image. Passing the ultrasound wand over the baby is almost like watching a 3D image. Looking at one snapshot of that picture is like looking at one slice of that image.

The black space in the center is her forehead, and just below that you can make out her right eye, nose and mouth. Much like last time, our daughter was very shy. While she didn't turn away from the wand, her left hand was covering her face for a good portion of the exam. That's why her left eye is mostly obscured in this shot. At one point the fingers on her left hand clenched and unclenched while we watched, which could either mean she was waving, or shooing us away. (Or it was involuntary fetal movement. Oops, must've pressed the snark button again.)

As annoying as the entire process was, I'm glad we got to see her again, and I'm glad everything is fine.

Holy Altered DNA, Batman! or ULTRAsounds!

Every dad thinks his kid is special. I am not an exception to this rule. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have long suspected that the next step in human development is just around the bend. Further, I suspected that my family tree just might support the next branch in human evolution. Before our first ultrasound I suspected that my child could be that next step, and now that I have the ultrasound in hand, I now I have the proof to back me up.

Here, in no particular order, are five possible mutations--with corroborating evidence--illustrating just how special my kid is.

Exhibit A.
I realize that this is not the sexiest of all possible mutations. But hey, progress is progress. I mean, I hope she doesn't turn out to be a supervillain because she's ashamed of her abilities, but it could be worse. I'm not a strong swimmer, and it's going to be tough to teach her how to swim. This could certainly help. Also, I'm not sure that a blowhole is necessarily tied to super-strength, but one can hope.

Exhibit B

Likewise, gills could prove invaluable to the inexperienced swimmer. More so than a blowhole, even, since she wouldn't actually need to come up for air at all. I should point out that though they aren't visible in the above photo, we clearly saw the lungs during the ultrasound, so if she did have gills, they would work in concert with her lungs, allowing her to breath both air and water. Gills have an additional advantage in that they wouldn't necessarily be visible, and she could more easily mingle with her less evolved friends and acquaintances. And if she can talk to fish, so much the better.

Exhibit C

Unless my ancestry has an as-yet-unidentified Kryptonian branch, it's unlikely that any spawn of mine will be able to fly without the aid of wings. (Unless she's a super-genius who invents a jetpack or other personal flight apparatus.) These wings appear to be folded at the present time, which one would expect, pre-birth. But based on the wings size right now, it's altogether possible she could be up and flying around before she walks. We may have to rethink the ceiling fan in her nursery.

Exhibit D

I'm going to break with my established pattern here, and start with some anecdotal evidence before I present the physical proof. For the last few weeks, Hollie has periodically developed really bad heartburn. Although the doctor said this is normal, and told her to take TUMS or something similar, nothing has truly quenched the heartburn. Typically, you'd just accept this as one of the side effects of pregnancy. I have a different theory. Until this point, I've shown the same ultrasound, and simply highlighted different parts. Shortly after snapping that picture, however, something happened, which we we fortunate enough to catch on the monitor.

I believe that in the presence of evil our baby turns into Ghost Rider. All the signs are there. Hollie pointed out the prominence of the skull, which you clearly can make out in all of the ultrasounds. And in the prolonged presence of our ultrasound tech, (whom I've already described as mostly evil--or just stupid) our daughter briefly completed her transformation. And why has Hollie been experiencing heartburn throughout the day? I blame the evil perpetrated by folks in our neighborhood who let their dogs poop in my yard.

Exhibit E
Which brings me to the final and, to my mind, most likely superpower held by my progeny. The supernatural ability to rock. Seriously, 20 weeks old and she's already throwin' the goat. I can't speak for Hollie, but I haven't been listening to that much Ozzy since we first found out she was pregnant. Granted, we have been playing a lot of Guitar Hero and Rock Band over the last year or so. It's probably seeped into our DNA at this point. And lest you think the ability to rock isn't a mutation, I beg to differ. Clearly, Kidz Bop isn't going to cut it with this kid, and I couldn't be happier.

In conclusion, I'm pretty sure my kid is going to kick all kinds of evildoer tail, and I look forward to nurturing her natural abilities, whatever they may be.

Hat tip to the Sreholsers for this post, btw. They deserve most of the credit.

It's a Girl! (We think)

There she is! That's my daughter! (Probably.)

Strike that. Let's go back. Day started out normally enough. When we set up the appointment, Hollie was given instructions on how the ultrasound visit was going to go down. She'd go in first, then someone would come out to get me and we'd find out the sex of the baby together.

So far, so good. We get to the radiology office about 9:45, or 15 minutes before our appointment. Fill out some paperwork, then it's time to wait, which we did. Around 10:10, Hollie's called into the exam room.

I'm pretty excited by this point. I'm figuring that in about 10 minutes or so, I'm going to find out whether the baby is a boy or girl. So I wait. And 10 minutes passes. "No biggie," I think to myself. "Whatever they needed to do, I'm sure everything is fine."

10 more minutes. "Man, this is a long wait. What are they doing in there?"

10 more minutes. And at this point, I start getting nervous. I don't know much about ultrasound, and I know less about what happens on your first ultrasound visit. But I do know that on our first doctor's visit together, the OB/GYN did an impromptu ultrasound that took no more than 3 minutes.

(Brief aside. I don't do well with not knowing what's going on. It's a personality quirk or flaw that I recognize within myself, but I do a lousy job dealing with it. Some of my angriest/most frightened/most frustrated moments have been when I'm faced with some situation where information is being withheld from me. You don't want to see me in a traffic jam with no discernible cause. It's not a pretty sight.)

10 more minutes. I'm at the 40-minute mark. My allergies have been giving me problems all day, so I'm sneezing, my eyes are itchy, and I have no idea where my wife is, or why all of this is taking so long. Is something wrong? Would someone tell me? Hollie would certainly want me back there, right?

10 more minutes. An hour and 15 minutes since we arrived at the office. I haven't seen Hollie in nearly an hour. No news doesn't feel like good news, and I'm starting to freak out (silently of course). I realize logically there's no reason to be worried, but I've also learned that reason flies out the window when it comes to your first kid. I start to get up to ask someone how long this is supposed to take when someone finally comes down the hall and asks if Matt would like to come back. Sigh of relief, and I follow the ultrasound tech back to the exam room.

Hollie is laying on an exam table next to the ultrasound machine. She doesn't look terribly comfortable, but she seems happy to see me. The tech tells me where to stand so we can both see the monitor. Then she starts prodding away with the ultrasound wand.

First thing I see is the head. Big, giant head. Turns out, everything on the screen is blown up. Baby is, in fact, not the size of a watermelon. Everything is blurry, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that we're looking at a brain. This likely marks the only time I will ever see the inside of my kid's head.

The technician moves across Hollie's abdomen, because apparently the baby is in the transverse position (and had moved since the earlier part of the exam that I was left out of.) Next we zoom in on the heart. I know nothing about pre-natal heart function, but this looked pretty good. Valves opening and closing in a rhythmic fashion; seems about right.

I see the spine, and we're moving down to the feet. I should mention that up to this point, the tech has said very little, and is quite brusque. At one point she even implies that a C-section will absolutely be necessary, because of how the baby is positioned. Scuse me, but the baby has shifted positions in the hour we've been here. I think sometime in the next 20 weeks, it'll move again.

Then she stops. "Is there anything else you'd like to see?" she asks. Is this a serious question? Umm. Yes. Could I get a closeup of the lungs? Come on! How bout the thing everyone wants to know? Boy or girl, please!

It's at this point that I start to think that the tech is stalling, ill-trained, or just plain dumb. I say the obvious: We want to know the sex. She hems and haws a bit more, and finally says that she hasn't been able to get a good angle, which is likely why she hasn't brought it up yet. Admittedly, the baby isn't exactly cooperating, but we're certainly not the only people who've ever dealt with that.

So she squirms around a bit, finds an angle where we can see the baby's butt and feet, but the kid has one leg outstretched and the other pulled up close to the groin. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was preparing a crane kick. I don't blame the kid. If someone had been poking at me for the better part of an hour, I'd be busting out the big guns, too.

So to make a long story short, we don't see a penis, but we do see the tell-tale three lines, albeit faintly. The ultrasound tech, in her infinite wisdom, says, "I want to say it's a girl, but I won't say 100% sure."

So there you have it, folks. We're having a girl. Probably.

Vital Statistics

Now that I've officially started posting here, let's drop a few numbers into the mix. Today officially begins the 19th week of pregnancy. Nearly halfway to the finish line now. My favorite online pregnancy calendar (I'm man enough to admit it; I like the pretty pictures) tells me that our baby is probably about 6 inches long and weighs in the neighborhood of 7 ounces.

Point of interest, to me at least, despite the fact that she's showing and has a 7-ounce tiny person inside her, mommy-to-be hasn't gained any weight. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's lost a pound or two. The docs tell us this is normal, so I'm not at all concerned, just fascinated by the quirks of biology. I mean, there's some serious conservation of mass going on here. (W)pre-pregnancy=(W)mid-pregnancy + (g)in utero. If I felt like it and didn't want to get my butt kicked, I could probably figure out the exact weight of the developing nerd spawn. That's right, folks. My blog title just got literal.

A week from today, at the start of the 20th week, we'll have the BIG ultrasound. The "what the heck is this thing growing in my wife anyway?" visit. Specifically, we're excited to (hopefully) learn the sex, as many people are. Full disclosure though, we've had two impromptu ultrasounds at this point. Not because of any problems, just that at 10 and 14 weeks, the docs said the baby's heartbeat might be tough to find using the audio-only Doppler wand, and they didn't want us to freak out. And who am I to say no to looking at the kid?

The first time, the only thing we could really discern was the head, and what I assume was a leg. The second time though, that was an actual human being. A 3-inch long human being, to be sure, but it was people nonetheless. My only regret? Why didn't I pull out the iPhone either time and snap a picture? Not that you'd be able to see much, but I could have had something to look at later. Ah well. I missed another opportunity to record something for posterity when we heard the heartbeat at the 18-week mark. Again, isn't this half the reason to have the iPhone? Making a record of random stuff that happens? I guess I was just living in the moment.

Anyway, I'm drifting off topic here. A week from today, we should have an official, not-snapped-on-an-iPhone picture of the kid. That's pretty exciting. It's going to be a long week.