Even Bigger

We had another ultrasound yesterday. Baby Ashlock is healthy and growing! (We are still waiting to find out the gender, but it is definitely getting harder to wait!) She is measuring at 3 pounds, 10 ounces--which is 2 whole weeks ahead of schedule. She is still in the normal range, but they warned us that she may be big!

We are now able to bring the baby home from the hospital! Thanks to Aunt Janet and Uncle Ray, we have a great new car seat and stroller.

We are officially in the 3rd trimester--aka the home stretch :) Baby is kicking throughout the day now. She is especially active at night and doesn't like it when I sneeze. She moves around a lot when she hears music. Future musician? Hopefully she receives Christian's musical talents and not mine!

PS: 4 strangers touched my belly today. I enjoyed it zero times.

Baby Bump is Bigger :)

From Baby Bump

Gender: We are still waiting to find out the baby's gender. It is a fun surprise that we think is worth waiting for!
Movement: Baby moves a lot!!! Everyone kept asking me if I could feel the baby kick--now I can finally say "Yes!" I had to wait until about 22 weeks. Baby Ashlock wakes up around 6:00 every morning with me. We need to discuss the concept of weekends still. I try to tell him that we don't need to get up that early on Saturdays, but he thinks otherwise. Every evening around 10:00, he wakes up again and is very active! He enjoys kicking and moving around for about 45 minutes, and then tuckers out for the night. Christian is able to feel the kicks, too!
Food Cravings: I haven't had many cravings--more aversions to food than anything. Baby and I love chocolate milk and pasta. I still have a very strong aversion to mint, and I have virtually no desire to eat meat (especially if I saw it raw).
Growth: Baby is growing steadily. We have another ultrasound coming up on Nov. 22--we can't wait to see how big he has gotten.

Halloween at 25 weeks

The Mommy Mobile

Baby. Tahoe. Accomplished.

The Stermole Nose?

We had our 4th ultrasound on Friday afternoon. Christian, Drew, and I went to Stanford to watch the baby show!

The baby is looking more and more like a real baby everyday! The baby was very active throughout the whole show (even though I still can't feel it move). The doctor and tech counted tiny fingers and toes, watched the heart, measured the mouth and tongue, and checked the rest of the baby's anatomy. Everything looks good! Baby Ashlock is growing properly and is about 11 ounces right now. We are right on track for a February 8 delivery. Although Christian and Drew are certain the baby will come two days early--Super Bowl Sunday.

As we stared mesmerized at the baby on the screen, the ultrasound tech exclaimed, "that nose is cute as a button!" Actually, she mentioned our baby's nose four times! The Stermole schnoz? Maybe, but it is still too early to know for certain.

The doctor seemed to really enjoy the fact that we didn't want to know the gender of the baby, so she was very careful. We didn't see or hear anything that we didn't want to see or hear!

You can click on the picture on the right to see more photos and captions.

Middle School-isms

Kid: What are you having?
Me: I don't know; we are going to wait and be surprised.
Kid: You mean you aren't going to find out if it is a boy or a girl?
Me: Nope, we are going to find out when it is born in February.
Kid: But you can tell us now, right? We won't tell anyone.

You are growing! I have another teacher who is growing, but not as big as you.

Should you be squatting down like that? Aren't you supposed to put your feet up?

Have you squeezed that baby out of you yet?

Babyface's First Pictures

Watch our new baby grow!!! You can click on the pictures on the right to view the whole album and descriptions. Enjoy!

Assumptions

If you make assumptions, sometimes you will end up an accomplice to the cover up of a medical error.

April and I assumed that part of the pregnancy confirmation ritual is getting a blood test. At home, you pee on a stick. At the doctor, they draw blood.

After we returned from San Diego, we scheduled an appointment with our primary care physician. She was reassuring, knowledgeable, and had first hand pregnancy advice. One of the concerns she raised was the possible Rh factor mismatch between mother and baby. April's blood type is A positive so we had no reason to worry.

After we concluded the appointment, we went to the blood lab to get a pregnancy test and confirm April's blood type. The tech didn't see April's name in the system but kindly offered to go ahead and draw a sample. 10 minutes later, the test order had still not arrived. The tech became concerned and asked us to verify the order without revealing that the tech carried out an unauthorized procedure. This was complicated by the fact that April had a hole in her arm and was wearing a bandage.

April and I returned to visit our doctor and played dumb. "Did you want us to get a blood test?" we asked. "No, you took a home test which is very reliable and April has her blood type from the Red Cross. You don't want to get needled for no reason" she replied. No, we wouldn't want that.

A little bit pregnant?

NOT PREGNANT: The digital home test boldly shouted at me. Hmmm, at least I would get to share some excellent wines with my husband in San Diego. We spent a wonderful weekend celebrating his 30th birthday at the The Del—beach, pool, Virgin America flights, food. I had successfully hidden this trip from Christian for so long, so it was extra special to actually get to go!

As the weekend went on, we started to doubt the mean digital test, so we stopped at a CVS and purchased a different test. The faintest, lightest plus sign in the world slowly appeared. A little bit pregnant? Complete disbelief set in. When we returned home, I set up an appointment with my doctor. After discussing the results of the test and next steps with my doctor, I still didn’t actually believe that I was pregnant. Even after experiencing some typical prego symptoms, it still didn’t seem real.

My OB wanted to see me before I left for Dublin/London just to ensure everything was where it was supposed to be. At only about 5.5 weeks, she informed us that we should not be worried if there was no heartbeat or if we could not see much. But, there it was on the screen—a tiny little black circle with a white blip in it! THAT is our baby!!!