It's a girl.....still!

Because of my GD (gestational diabetes) and what my OB considers "borderline hypertension" I now get to see a perinatologist once a month. The good side to this is that we'll have LOTS of ultrasounds. The bad side? From my experience, the wait in a peri's office is never less than an hour in the waiting room. It sucks.

Brad took the day off to go with me to this first appointment because it was my BIG "20 week (even though I was 18.5) ultrasound." It's the one where they take a really close look at everything - particularly all of the parts of her heart and the different lobes of the brain. It's also usually the time that you find out the sex, though we already knew.

The ultrasound was great. Abby looks perfect. She's measuring exactly where she's supposed to, and her heart rate was great. She looks SO much like Emma did in her ultrasound pictures. She has a completely different nose though. I'm pretty sure it's mine. She was doing all sorts of flips and tumbles and liked to keep her feet up by her face. It was pretty funny. When the tech looked at her brain I said "OH! Thank GOD! It's not empty, so she definitely took after her Mama!" The tech cracked up, as did I. Not sure Brad found it that funny. ;)


We got to wait for a referral so that we could see the perinatologist himself. Not sure why, but hey. About 30 minutes later, after having to call Brad's sister in a panic because our appointment ran so long that my mom had to be back at work, we saw Dr. Eller. He was great. He said that my glucose levels look good so far and that he'll want to see me monthly for ultrasounds to check on Abby's growth. GD babies have a tendency to be big. If she's any bigger than Emma, I want no part of it! He said my blood pressure looked great to him, and that if I had any issues with it later in my pregnancy, he may want to see me bi-weekly. I'm hoping that that doesn't happen, but you never know what will creep up. With Emma it was my heart rate and I saw the cardiologist. With Abby it's my blood pressure and a perinatologist. Yay!

Here are some pictures of my little bug. Isn't she precious?? She's 10 oz. according to their calculations. I have felt several small kicks, but nothing as strongly as I did with Emma. At the ultrasound I found out why - I have an anterior placenta. That means that, rather than the placenta stretching along the top of my uterus, it's across the front. It makes feeling fetal movement early on a little harder because it's padded, but otherwise has no danger. Hopefully I'll start feeling some bigger kicks soon, though I do remember what it was like when Emma would wake me up at all hours of the night kicking me!

Little feet

19 week belly pictures. Emma had just woken up from a super long nap and was a little crabby. Can you tell? ;)