Thumb-sucking

What a magnificent, wonderful, joyous day! Our appointment was at 9 am today -- we arrived at 9:00:59, I'm sure... I hate being late! But there was traffic! At 8:40?!? Get to work people! :) haha

ANYWAYS... They called us back at about 9:15.. and let me tell you, the anticipation was BUILDING!! We were about to see our baby! About the only solid proof of pregnancy I get, since I don't get sick!

I specifically told Hector to take pictures of me while the tech was doing the sonogram, but, all he got were these:

Ummm.. that's not me, Hector!

I digress.. We were there for the nucchal translucency test, which is where they take some measurement behind the baby's neck which screens for risk of Down's syndrome and a few other chromosomal abnormalities. Anyways, the baby needs to be pretty horizontal and stretched out to get this measurement, but our Little Bambino was curled up in a tight nook at the bottom of my uterus, like this:

                  

He or she was very comfy in that little ball!

We saw the heart beating again, the rate today was 150 beats per minute. Baby is about 7 cm long, which is right on, for it's developmental stage. By the way we were 13 weeks, 3 days for this sonogram. Can you believe how much bigger we are now??!?!?

                   

Bambino was moving all over the place! The tech had to invert the table, which means I was tilted waaaay backwards, with my feet towards the ceiling to try and get the baby to stretch into just the right position. Here, the baby must've heard me and Daddy because he/she waved at us and then sucked their thumb! I wanted to CRY when I saw those 5 fingers fan out like that! How sweet!!

And here we are, kicking our feet and waving our other hand! Have you ever seen anything quite so amazing?? I haven't. I can't say that I've ever been this happy! Just look at that cute belly and adorable profile! It was so cute to see the baby wiggle away when the tech would poke and prod a little to get him/her to move a bit. Ahhhhhhhhhhh....

Then we had our appointment with Dr. Rosenbaum. She used her Doppler again and this time we heard the heartbeat! What a sweet, sweet sound! She counted again and came up with 150 bpm, also. My blood pressure is good, at 100/70. At my first appointment it was 124/70. Today I weighed 144.2 lbs, up 2 whole pounds since my first appointment. I am quite proud that I didn't gain like 10 pounds in the first trimester.. because that leads to large for gestational age (LGA) babies, and I'd rather not push one of those out.. thank you. Also, gaining too much weight too fast increases your risk of getting gestational diabetes.

So, our next appointment is August 9th. We'll be 17 weeks, 3 days. Dr. Rosenbaum didn't want to do the anatomy scan that day, so she said we'd do it the following week so we'd be 18 weeks and some days. It will be right before my birthday! That will be the best birthday present EVER! We just can't wait to find out if it's a boy or girl (guy* or girl, says Preston), so we can start planning! We've been really lax on the naming game, and I think we'll really buckle down once we know the gender. And we're excited to pick out bedding and clothes!

Gahh, today was wonderful.. =)  I've gotta finish up some laundry and take a nap, so I can function at work tonight!