I know I don't write much about the baby (yet). But we're all very excited about her impending arrival in April.
We waited awhile to announce that we were expecting because of some previous issues with miscarriages. I think we were hesitant to get too excited before we knew everything with this little one would be OK.
We saw her heartbeat for the very first time on Tuesday, September 15th. Since it was still very early in my pregnancy and I had problems before, the ultrasound technician wanted us to come back when I was around 9 weeks along. So we went back on Tuesday, September 29th. We were elated to see the heartbeat yet again. Now, I was further along than I had been in my previous 2 pregnancies.
I had a nuchal translucency test (which screens for Down's Syndrome and other Trisomy defects) on Monday, October 19th. It was such a relief to me to see the heartbeat again. She was moving around quite a bit and was very active. That probably didn't have anything to do with the Chick-fil-A tea I had right before the ultrasound! The technician was great and was very reassuring. She knew I had a previous history of miscarriage and she was quick to get started and show me the heartbeat. She took a bunch of measurements and told me that everything looked great. She also looked at the blood flow through the liver. The technology is just amazing
She also guessed that the baby is a girl. She said she had been wrong once, so not to go out and decorate the nursery or anything like that.
She took some blood for some more testing and then the doctor (perinatologist) came in. I was glad that I didn't see him first. His bedside manner wasn't all that great and he told me that the medication I'm taking for blood clotting disorder doesn't always work and some doctors don't believe in it. So he wasn't quite as reassuring as the ultrasound technician.
At this point, my bladder was very full from the tea I had before the appointment. And he wasn't all that gentle when he did another ultrasound. I was just ready for him to be done and I was hoping I would never have to see him again!
Even though we weren't 100% sure that the baby was a girl, we decided to tell Mitchell just to prepare him for the fact that he *might* have a baby sister. He had told us along that he wanted a baby brother. He took the news well and started watching commercials on TV and telling us what we needed to get for his "baby sister".
Now we had to wait about 6 more weeks for the "big" ultrasound where we would find if the baby really was a girl.
I had a regular appointment with my midwife on Monday, November 16th. Mitchell came with me because he had his 6-year-old checkup the same morning. And our doctor's offices are right around the corner from each other. He was pretty occupied with playing games on my phone. But then he heard the heartbeat. He looked up, walked over to where I was and said, "Is that thunder in there?" We laughed and told him no, that is the baby's heartbeat. He wasn't all that impressed. He just went back to his seat and started playing games again.
I scheduled the big ultrasound for Tuesday, December 1st. At least I had the Thanksgiving holiday to keep me occupied as I counted down the days until we would see our baby again.
The technician was very happy to see us again and to know that everything was progressing well. She had been the one to tell me twice before that I was miscarrying. So I know she was almost as happy as we were that she had been able to deliver good news throughout this pregnancy. I told her I had the nuchal a few weeks earlier and the technician had made a gender guess. She said not to tell her...she wanted to see if her guess was the same. Then she said she thought it was a girl. And we told her that is also what the other person had guessed.
She took some measurements and everything was measuring right on track. The baby was extremely active and was moving around quite a bit. I'm not feeling very many kicks yet, but when I saw my midwife earlier this week, she said my placenta is in the front and that is probably blocking some of the movements I would feel.
As of tomorrow, I will be 21 weeks. That means I'm more than halfway through the pregnancy now. My due date is April 30th, but we're hoping to schedule the c-section for April 23rd, since it falls on a Friday and that will make things easier with Dave's work and Mitchell's school schedule. So I really have 18 more weeks to go!
Although Mitchell talks quite a bit about his baby sister and he seems excited, we know that he has no idea what kind of impact this baby will have on his life. By the time she arrives, he'll be just shy of being 6 1/2 years old. That's a lot of alone time with Mommy and Daddy!
When I was pregnant with Mitchell, we never really came up with a girl name that we absolutely loved. We had one boy name -- Mitchell -- and obviously we used that. But we didn't have an extensive list of boy or girl names for child #2. But we have come up with a name for this little one and Dave teases me about this baby being Tracey Jr.
Come April 2010, we will be happy to welcome Macey Wynne into our family.
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