The Growing Bump

I got a bit behind on the posts esp. since there has been such big news lately so don't fall over that you're getting two posts in two days ;)  I'm also doing my best to keep ya'll updated on the growing belly (it's an entity unto its own) and posting pics every two weeks.

We all know Russ was less than thrilled about taking this picture but he's learning to be a good sport.  Beba is silently protesting

My Dr. said that it is normal to gain about 25-35 lbs over the course of a pregnancy and at my last appointment, I had gained ten lbs.  Which, I should mentioned I relayed to Russ and his response was, "that's all, you look like you've gained more".  * Note, never a good idea to say that to your wife.  It's all good, I know the baby is getting everything she needs and getting big and round is part of the deal you make when taking on a pregnancy.

The fruit artwork is courtesy of Russ - it's supposed to be a papaya

My diet hasn't really changed too much since being pregnant.  Early on, I couldn't stand the idea of coffee but this aversion has passed and just recently I experienced my first craving for a strawberry shake from Jack in the Box.  All in all though, I'm just trying to remember more fruits and vegetables and to eat small frequent meals.  I took some tips from my mother-in-law and added some of the swiss chard we have in our garden to my fruit smoothies in the morning so at least I'm getting my fruit and at least one veggie each day (hopefully more in my lunch in dinner).

Not a great quality pic but I feel like this image shows more accurately how big the belly has gotten (22 weeks, 3 days)

The Big News!

While some people find out at 13 weeks (my sister), others have to wait until close to 21 weeks to find out the sex of their baby! 

Our dessert...

Our Perinatologist, Dr. Platt, recommends conducting the second trimester ultrasound at 20-22 weeks to maximize the information he can gather.  They measure everything in the second trimester and it's so cool when you can actually see your baby's heart pumping blood in and out using such advanced technology.

 We thought long and hard about how we wanted to find out the sex of our baby and knew that we wanted something intimate and authentic to who we are.  We considered the "reveal" party, the cake, special boxes with the gender name inside, etc... but at the end of the day - we decided that we just wanted "us".  We love nothing more than a good date night and so we picked a special place we'd been wanting to try, WP24 at the top of the Ritz Carlton in downtown.

To be honest, we both thought that we'd know the sex of our baby prior to dinner because the 52 inch+ (?) plasma screen that you watch during the ultrasound doesn't hide very much.  But, to our surprise, Dr. Platt was pretty incredible (and fast) as he confirmed the sex.  He is a funny Dr. and wrote the sex down on a post-it note and then wrapped it in tons of tape and layers of paper and placed the "ball" in an envelope.

As we were finishing up our main course, we took turns opening the note revealing a new layer until finally I got it back from Russ and opened up the final post-it to reveal that we are having a ...

An emotional moment - the paper says "girl"!

 GIRL!!!!

We are over the moon excited about our little baby girl who is gonna be here before we know it.