Belly Bump

It's been a while since I posted belly pictures, so here are some new ones. The first photo here is the last one I posted, from April 27. The second is from this last Sunday, July 27. As you can see, my belly is quite a bit bigger now. It seems to me that it really just started ballooning in the last few weeks. It's started getting in my way, too, when it comes to bending over. The upside is that I now look pregnant enough to get special treatment from people--doors opened, chairs offered, etc. The only shorts and pants I can fit into now are maternity or elastic/drawstring, and I've also started wearing maternity tops--not so much for girth since my shirts are stretchy, but for length.

Meet Zaxxon!

Here, at long last, are the ultrasound photos!

We'd tried to hook the video camera up directly to their machine, but that didn't work so we just taped the screen. The only video clip we've included is the heartbeat. This is basically a cross section of the baby's chest, and you can see the four chambers of the heart as they beat. Pretty cool. The rest of the video changed views a lot and kept freezing b/c the technician kept measuring things, so it didn't really make for a good continuous video.

This first photo is of the baby in profile, and the second it has its arm up, and looks like it's sucking its thumb.





























These three are the 3-D images of the baby's face. Pretty darn cool!

In this last photo, you can see a foot.


We declined to find out the gender, and she was very cautious so we wouldn't see anything, and told us when to pause it and look away while she checked out the legs and nether regions. We even think, after watching it played back, that she alternated between saying "he" and "she" a few times, so she was trying not to give any clues.

Isn't Zaxxon neat?!!

The Quickening and other news

Here's a new vocabulary word for those who don't know it: the quickening. It refers to when a woman first feels her baby move. For me, it was actually the day of the ultrasound, while I was lying in bed that night. I wasn't sure at first, since it was just a gurgle or flutter and could've been gas, but when it kept happening over the next few days, I became sure. I'd probably been feeling it move for a week or two prior to that, but just didn't recognize it. Since that time, the baby has started moving quite a bit. I don't just feel it at night anymore, but also many other times when I stop moving: at my desk at work, on the couch while watching TV, etc. Occassionally even when I'm moving around. It's sometimes strong enough that Dean has been able to feel it, too. Zaxxon is on the move!

We began our first registry this past weekend. We'll post links once they're complete. So far we only made it through a fraction of Babies R Us before we had to take off and go to a friend's baby shower. We've got multiples of certain items until we decide which we actually want, so we've really only just begun.

We realize we still need to get ultrasound pics up. That should happen very soon.

Going to our friend's baby shower made me realize that we should probably get plans in motion for ours. I have some ideas, but I guess it's time to start putting things together.

In other news, Dean and I will be going to Rome in August. We discovered that we needed to use some hotel points this year and decided to take advantage of that to go somewhere exotic and different as a "babymoon." Should be fun!

Oh, and I was hoping that people would comment more on this blog, so if you have something to say, please share! Just remember to identify yourself in your comment.