World Traveler

Luckily she doesn't need a passport quite yet, but our baby is about to travel to her first foreign country.  We leave on a 6:00 AM flight Saturday morning for St. Martin (with a pit stop in Miami).  Don't get me started on that 6:00 AM flight, though.  The baby and I will assuredly be cranky --- watch out, John!

I'm not sure I own any shorts that fit me, so I'll be in dresses all week, whether we are playing pinochle with John's dad or eating crepes at a cafe.  I also figured it was high time to invest in some tankinis to cover my somewhat enlarged belly.  I'm sure everyone else will thank me.

I have high hopes to blog quite a bit from our villa, so check back if you want a severe dose of jealousy.

Harper 2

The Original Harper

Our current name for the baby is Harper 2.  When we told John's very outspoken brother what we planned to name a baby girl he basically responded by saying "Ugh.  I do not like that.  I'd rather you name her Harper 2."  So we did!  Well, we did for now.  We often call labradoodle Harper, "Harper 1" now, just to make sure she isn't confused by all our Harper 2 talk.  I'm sure she thinks we are nuts (she might be right).

Baby Bump?

I thought it might be nice to take some pictures of my baby bump when it's in the early stages.  I never took a pre-baby bump picture because I was so bloated the entire first trimester it looked like I had a baby bump.

Well I'm 12 weeks pregnant now, so I gave it my best go at getting a belly picture.

As you can see, I didn't really have the best of luck.

Here I entirely forgot to include my belly in the photo.

This one is close, but I'm at such a weird angle you can't even really tell what my belly looks like.

Cut off my head, and the camera strap is in the way.  Very successful evening, obviously.

This is about as good of a belly shot as you're going to get.

And that's how I feel about that.

Pink or Blue?

No one seems to believe me, but we already have a good sense of the baby's gender.  Not sense as in it-feels-like-a-boy-inside-me, but as told by our doctor.  When we went to get our 12 week ultrasound, they are able to look at the baby's internal organs and somehow get a good guess at the baby's gender.  There isn't really anything external yet, so they just take a look at how things are forming inside.  The ultrasound technician told us her verdict, and later the doctor came in to look herself and gave us the same guess.  They told us it's about 80-85% certain when they look this early.  We had to promise not to paint the baby's room and if we buy clothes we have to keep all the tags on.  But it looks like we are having...



















a GIRL!!

We are so excited to welcome this (80% chance) baby girl into our home!!

12 weeks, 1 Day

Here are the ultrasound pictures taken at 12 weeks, 1 day. The baby has John's nose already!  (I'm not kidding!)

Here is one teeny tiny foot.  The baby is a little over two inches crown to rump (apparently legs are inconsequential).

This is an aerial view of sorts - you can see the head and both arms reaching out.  I can't get enough of these ultrasound pictures.  Our next one isn't until 19 weeks, though, so these will have to tide me over for a bit.

This set of ultrasound pictures was part of a set of genetic tests they run to check for a parade of horribles with the baby.  So far everything looks good on that front though, and we'll get one final set of blood work done in a month to finish out the tests.

The Debut

Isn't our baby photogenic already?  Taken on December 28, 2011 and giving us an estimated due date of August 2, 2012.  We got some new ultrasound pictures yesterday, which I will post soon.