First Father’s Day

Father to be Card

Our first semi father’s day was a hit. On Friday, my husband felt his first kick, on Saturday he received a card from his first soon-to-be-born and on Sunday the baby and I cooked breakfast for my husband.

I have to tell you about a great find – hallmark.com. You can buy cards there for the same cost as in the store (about $3.50) and personalize them and mail them at no extra cost. Did you catch that? No additional cost for postage or personalization?
They have every card you could possibly imagine – father’s day for a soon to be dad, adoption cards,congrats on your new pet, pretty much anything you can imagine. My husband was super impressed when he received a card with a picture of his own baby in the mail – it was really cute.

22 weeks

21 week belly

I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while. Things have changed a lot. I’m visibly pregnant now and my attitude is so different; I feel like the experience is suddenly very magical. I feel so lucky and SO protective of the baby, of myself, of the experience. I think that’s why I haven’t been posting. That being said, I’ll do my best to open up again.

So, 22 weeks. Past half way and almost at the point that the baby could feasibly live if something were to happen. I have put on 14 pounds, which is just about perfect for me (yes, yes, everyone is different.) The baby weighs about 14 ounces, then placenta weighs some of the additional, along with water weight, additional blood and stuff and finally, the chips I’m currently eating.

We went for the 20 week ultrasound and my placenta is in the wrong place (bad placenta!), which is called placenta previa. It is laying over my cervix so for the baby to come out the placenta would have to tear and that would cause “impressive” blood loss (my doctor’s words) and would be very dangerous. So they monitor it through regular ultrasounds and hope that it moves. If not, we’ll have a c-section. No big deal. Ok, so maybe it is a medium sized deal, but there are 6.6 billion people in this world each of whom had a mother. If they all can do it, and many of them with a lot less care, so can I.

The other thing that concerned the doctor was a bright spot in the baby’s heart. This, along with other soft markers, can be a sign of down syndrome. If you remember, I went for the screening at 16 weeks (standard practice in the US for women 35 and over) but didn’t do the blood test as I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The doctor performing the ultrasound asked again if we wanted the blood test (the second step in the screening) and talked to us about the ways knowing can help (you can be sure specialists are on hand whatever the trouble should be – down syndrome, spina bifida etc.) so we did it.  My husband then called every day for the results and eventually learned all is a-ok.

Next change, the little bugger moves constantly. I feel him/ her flipping over, kicking or punching a lot. It’s such a strange and glorious feeling. It feels like stomach churns or bad gas but in the front lower part of your belly. And you know, the nausea or just sick feeling that you get with stomach churns or gas? None of that. I guess it’s kind of like butterflies, but without the adrenaline. It’s so easily the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. My husband asked if I would give up the ability to have a baby – I said NO WAY! I always planned on adopting after number one, but now I’m not so sure. I love this feeling so much.