Halfway There!

March 9th 2009- was supposed to be the big 20 week appointment. The "Big U/S" the one in which we'd find out the sex of the baby and also do the anatomy scan. I still hadn't come home from Virginia yet so had to push my appointment back to the 16th (21 weeks).

Although I missed the appointment, I was thrilled to finally be 20 weeks pregnant! At 20 weeks I had 138 days until my EDD! At 20 weeks, the baby is about the length of a banana. The baby, who we will soon find out is a girl, is now swallowing regularly and also busy making her first poop which is called meconium.

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Things weren't going too badly although I was beginning to get more and more uncomfortable. I was still having terrible headaches (which I found out are pregnancy related migraines) and also sharp back pain that ran down both legs (thank you sciatic nerve).

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On March 13th we made our first trip to Labor and Delivery. It was about 11pm when I started experiencing pretty painful cramps and spotting! Of course I panicked, I called my mom who said to get to the hospital and also called the doctor that was on-call that evening. The consensus was that I needed to get to the hospital. We rushed to the hospital and got checked-in and comfy in the room. 

It was a long night as I was hooked up to a monitor for a few hours. We both slept for a little while and were later told that things looked ok and that I was to take it easy for a few days.  We got home at about 3:30 am and from then on I've been pretty confined to the house.

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Finally on the 16th we went to the doctor! Both of our families were excited to hear about how well the baby was growing and to officially know the sex (although my family already knew it would be a girl).

We arrive at the doctors office and I chugged two bottles of water really quickly (doctor's orders).  We were both SO nervous to see Caylee and to hear that all of her organs were developing well. He held my hand the whole time and I seriously thought he was going to cry when we saw her (I think we were looking at her kidneys). At the beginning of that U/S we had no clue what we were looking at because the tech was measuring limbs and checking organs. We actually got in trouble because we were snapping pictures and not at all paying attention! The tech asked us to stop taking pictures for a little while and asked if we even knew what we were looking at (again, it was the kidneys)....

I mentioned the fact that the baby is going to be on the left side but that she would be moving a lot! She already has a pretty set schedule (9 and 11 am, 3-5pm, and 10-12pm) and I am beginning to expect her to move at certain times during the day. Sure enough, she was curled up on the left side and kicking like crazy!

We soon found out that the baby was in fact a girl! We weren't really sure how the tech could tell, but she said she was positive.  She poked around until she could get a better picture that was a little more convincing to us. Our little girl could be felt about an inch above my bellybutton and was 1 pound and 3 ounces (11 inches). Everything looked fantastic and we were so happy!

So...halfway there and we will be having a healthy little PRINCESS!

A new baby is like the beginning of all things-wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.

-- Eda J. Le Shan