Another doctor visit today...

We had another doctor visit today, and this time it was with one of the real doctors.  There are like six doctors that our insurance has and one of them is always at the hospital delivering babies 24 hours 7 days a week.  When it is time for us to deliver, we may or may not get a doctor that we have met, but it will be one those that are from our insurance and that know what we expect to happen.

In any case, we met with a doctor today.  Her name was Dr. Phair (think that is how you spell her name).  She didn't do a whole lot besides answer questions and check on the babies heartbeat, but it definitely was not a boring visit.  She took another ultrasound, and the image totally blew us away.  OUR BABY LOOKS LIKE A BABY!!

All of the past ultrasounds have shown a little blob inside of another blob.  This time, the image clearly showed a little kid with a big freaking head!  The ultrasound image is real-time so you can see what is going on, and the heart was beating really fast and our baby was slinging around all over the place!  We could see the baby kicking its feet, and moving its hands towards its mouth and then away again.  Kind of looked like it was twisting, too.  When the doctor saw him/her, she immediately said, "wow, you have a very active baby," so I guess that they do not normally move that much all of the time.  Guess we interrupted some morning exercises.

In any case, we go in again at the end of May for blood work that is going to screen for hormones that are normally expressed in association with birth defects like Downs Syndrome and stuff like that.  Then at like 18 weeks we do a big formal ultrasound where they will take a lot of measurements, check to be sure that the anatomy looks OK, and tell us the sex if we would like to know.

I got some shots down below.  These are really crappy for the time being until I can get the photo back from Becka and do a real scan of the image.  One is the naked pic and then the second has got some labels.  Our baby is lying on its back and has its hand up towards its face.

Week 10

*This is actually by Becka, I only posted it because the site was messing up.

Yep, starting today our embryo has matured into a fetus. The significance here is that all of the major organs (brain, nervous system, kidneys, etc) have all formed- that is complete. Our big step now is growth - which apparently is what makes a fetus a fetus: that growth doubles in just three weeks and rapid growth like this will continue pretty much for the rest of the pregnancy. Also what makes a fetus is that it s/he is making his/her own blood cells from internal organs and not relying on the yolk sac to do that anymore. By this time, too (it's quite the milestone), our baby has measurable weight. Little differences, too, like fingernails, hair, and being able to bend his/her elbows and knees, and our baby has an eye color. With so much going on during Week 10, I'm surprised it isn't talked about more frequently. I mean, I hear so much about eight weeks- when most women find out they are pregnant; about 12 weeks when you can hear the heart and go into your second trimester; 16 weeks when most women start to really show; etc. Poor, under appreciated week 10. I nominate Week 10 as one of our most outstanding weeks of pregnancy for all the milestones crossed!

I'm working on getting a decent picture of a 10 week old fetus, but I haven't found what I consider reliable sources. Once I find something awesome to share, I'll make sure it gets on here. Eric might find something, too.

Ma baby has got hands!!!

The baby pretty much already has hands, they have separated out and
aren't really flippers anymore. I was looking into some stuff today, and came across these sketches of forelimbs. These are drawings of fossilized hands from three different species of fish / reptiles / amphibians / whatever you want to call them that are intermediate species from when fishes came onto land. It is so neat to look at fossils like these and really see the intermediate stages in the evolution of our kids' and our own limbs. The human hand is without a doubt the most intricate appendage that has ever evolved on the planet, and to see all the changes that had to happen in order for them to form in the way that they did makes me appreciate the fact that I can do stuff like type on a keyboard right now. Bacteria and unicellular animals have got a lot of things that we do not, but hands are still really cool. The bones of hands just like these are becoming hard right now in Becka. It will be cool to hold our babies hand in a few months from now. You know, after her/his hands are cleaned up a bit and aren't all icky anymore. Cause otherwise that would just be gross.

I'm ready!

Can't we just have our baby already? This whole thing takes forever! We never wait for things, we just decide one day to do something and then do it right away. I'm ready! Let's go!

Week 9

Well, starting tomorrow, we are in week nine. Our embryo has little
eye flaps and the baby's flippers be starting to separate into little
appendages that will be toes and fingers. Earlier on, our baby had a
tail, but it is beginning to shrink.

I think that is so cool. That we start to form tails, and then they
shrink back down into nothing. We form them in the first place
because our ancestors had tails so it is therefore the default
developmental program for us to at least initially form tails, too. For whatever reason we have lost tails, but instead of just never
forming them in the first place, we have evolved new developmental
machinery that makes the tail degenerate after it begins to form. It
seems like it would be much more difficult to take away something
after it has began to form then to just not form it at all, but I
guess that is just how our processes came to be. In either case, I
think the whole tail thing is really cool.

The books and stuff mention that at this point our baby will begin to
make little movements on it's own. Maybe that has something to do
with all of the pain that Becka was having last week.

I looked ahead to week 10 and it is weird. Up until now, all of
these diagrams have to be blown up quite a bit in order for us to see
anything at all. At week nine the baby is only .65 inches long. By
week 10 though, the real-life size is actually significant. Our baby
will actually look like a baby and will be big enough to see all of
the parts without blowing up the drawing. That is cool...and also really weird because the baby looks freaking huge in those drawings, but Becka is hardly even showing. I only notice a little bulge when she isn't wearing a shirt. I guess I thought that in order for the kid to be that big, she would need to be gigantic. Guess I was wrong.

Waiting Game

Not much has happened since our last post. I did go the the OB and my PCP for some lower back pain, which is believed to be muscular. It is definately not nerve pain (I've read and have been told that the sciatic nerve is put under considerable stress when pregnant), I know how that feels, and this is not it. With very few imaging possibilities (xrays for example - not a good idea), it's difficult to figure out exactly what is going on. I have made an appointment to see a physical therapist to explore what kind of exercises and stretches will work to keep me moving. Between that and switching ice and heat, or the occasional Tylenol if I want it, that's about all I got. And it seems to be working pretty darn well. Other than that, our next appointment isn't until the end of April (on the 30th) - what seems like lifetimes away. Hopefully at that visit all will be good; we might be able to hear a heartbeat, and be welcomed into the second trimester!

New Ultrasound

Becka was having some pain in her back and hips so she went to the doctor just to be sure everything was OK. She is fine, and we got another ultrasound out of the visit. Baby is healthy.

Our First Class

Eric and I went to our first class the other night. Basically, it was a "How to be a responsible pregnant lady" type class. The nurse, who teaches these and other classes and is a temp for the OB department, taught us how the baby develops, tips for a healthy pregnancy, and talked a little bit about the other classes our insurance offers (yes, our insurance has classes such as: Daddy Day Camp where soon to be dads can hold real, live babies, Pet Plus Baby where you learn how to introduce your first babies to your new, human baby, Baby Business - likely the most useful - where you tour the hospital, complete your paperwork, and so on). Much of what nurse Betsy talked about, we already knew through our baby book. It was still a good class. Eric and I were likely the youngest people there - it felt really weird. Eric is really glad that I haven't had many problems with morning sickness. He left class assuming that in any minute, I'd be green in the face and on the verge of spewing all over the place. I did learn that Eric and I are doing pretty darn good job caring for our embryo.