2nd Tri

I know that there's a "great debate" lingering, about when exactly the 1st trimester of pregnancy ends and the 2nd trimester begins... some go with the old fashioned 12 weeks, new studies are saying 13 weeks, and some people even say 14 weeks now is when you officially make the switch.

Needless to say, no matter what your opinion on the subject, I am approaching the end of the 1st trimester of pregnancy and entering the 2nd trimester (at some point within the next few weeks at least).

Today we had our NT Scan ultrasound, which is typically done at the very end of the 1st trimester.

This was literally one of the coolest experiences of pregnancy thus far!

The whole point of the 1st trimester screening or NT Scan, is to measure a small space on the back of baby's neck. The measurement of this particular space, is supposed to indicate risk for birth defects like Down Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities - babies at higher risk of birth defects, with have a larger NT measurement. This ultrasound is also combined with bloodwork, which we should be receiving the results back from in 7-10 days.

During our scan - it must have been nap time, because baby was curled up in the fetal position and pretty still for the most part. When we first got started s/he wiggled around a little bit, but then quickly settled back down for the remainder of the scan. Baby started out laying on his/her back, which made it difficult for the tech to get the measurement she was looking for. After a lot of poking, prodding, wiggling, and jiggling she was finally able to get at an angle where she thought she could get the measurement. But what do you know, baby must have known we were getting close because he/she decided that was time to flip over and lay on their stomach haha Needless to say, we did end up getting the measurement and it just took a little bit longer because baby was being stubborn and uncooperative (we're gonna have our hands full lol).

All-in-all everything looked great, and the ultrasound tech was very pleased with everything that she saw.

Baby is measuring right on track at 11w5d, with a heartbeat of 161bpm.

His/her CRL (crown-to-rump-length) was 61mm

And the NT fold measurement was 1.0mm!!!! (which is great btw)

Here are some new pictures of baby:

Furniture

Given our history with regards to pregnancy, I continue to find myself a "little gun" shy this time around. I know, I know... I've been reassured numerous times by medical professionals that things are in fact progressing well and that our chances of losing this little one are less than 5% now that we're this far along and have a strong heartbeat. But I still cannot seem to get myself out of this nervous state and from what I've heard, that is in fact very normal for being pregnant after a loss.

No less, as we reach the end of the first trimester and begin our venture into the second trimester - I am trying to reassure myself and get more excited about the fact that we will be having a baby in 6 months.

Along with that, comes the first baby related purchases. Again, given our history I swore that I would wait as long as humanly possible before buying anything for baby (even if that meant shopping after s/he arrives lol). The thought of buying something, tragedy striking again, and then having to look at said purchase afterward is simply too much to fathom.

BUT... we recently came across a deal that we simply could not pass up. I don't know how many of you have been furniture shopping recently, let alone baby furniture shopping, but that stuff is expensive! And most of it isn't even made from real wood anymore! So we've slowly been browsing the larger baby related items, getting a feel for what we like and don't like. Most of the furniture sets that have caught our eye, come in at well over $1,000 - yes, you heard right... that's one thousand dollars for baby furniture! Regardless, my mother has graciously offered to buy a furniture set for her future grandchild and I simply could not bring myself to give her a price tag of that magnitude.

So I had been doing some looking on the JCPenny website (they're currently clearing out all of their last year's stock to make room for this year's new models) and enjoyed seeing a lot of their beautiful sets on sale. Still a little gun shy and not ready to commit, I was merely window shopping. Until yesterday, that is... a lovely mom-to-bed on one of The Bump message boards that I frequent, posted a promo code for 15% off at JCPennys. On a whim I took the code to the website and plugged it in to see what (if anything) it could do for us and much to my surprise it presented us with an amazing opportunity. One of the sets that we had our eye on, that was already on sale/clearance, allowed us to use to 15% off promo code AND would do free site-to-store shipping!!! We ended up snagging a beautiful 4-piece set (convertible crib, dresser, changer, toy chest) for only $863!!!

How great of a deal is that?!

We couldn't be more thrilled (and neither could my mom and her checkbook lol). Even despite my weariness of too soon baby purchases, I am so happy about this deal. We still need to finish the upstairs remodel before we can actually begin work on the nursery (since we are currently occupying the baby's future bedroom), and so the furniture will remain in pieces in the boxes until this summer - which made this whole idea a lot easier to swallow - but we simply couldn't pass up a deal like that.

So, without further ado... I present to you, our nursery furniture!

 

The set is the Hartford Collection in Coffee from JCPenny, and we snagged all 4 pieces for only $863!!!

Not too bad, if I do say so myself ;o)

The website says that in-stock items usually arrive at the store within 4-7 business days, and so we're expecting a call sometime next week for us to come and pickup the furniture from the store. After that it will simply sit in storage until we're ready to start working on the nursery.

First official baby purchase - check!

T-minus 29 weeks and counting!

Home Is Where The Heart[beat] Is

PA while ago we purchased a home doppler - the Sonoline B 3mhz - and sadly never got to use it... until now. After my doctor tried so halfheartedly to find the heartbeat at my appointment last week, I decided to wait a few days and then give it a try myself :o) Needless to say, I am clearly better at this than my trained medical professional, because I was able to find the heartbeat with my own home doppler.

Here is a video of baby's first heartbeat at 9w5d on Valentine's Day 2011!

disclaimer: apologies for the poor sound quality (and my lovely pajamas ;o) - I know there's some static and a lot of background noise, but if you turn your volume up and listen carefully, you can heart the heartbeat.



Pretty cool, huh?!

At our last ultrasound, baby's heartbeat was at ~178bpm and according to this machine, it is currently around ~166bpm. Now, old wives tales say that anything above 140bpm will be a girl... interesting...