Ultrasound Pics...better late than never

I finally got some the pictures scanned from our last ultrasound a couple of weeks ago. I was 20 weeks, 5 days at the time. The baby was so big that he couldn't fit in one picture, so we have a lot of pictures of different body parts.

Spine & Ribs

4 Chambers of the Heart

Split screen of the Feet

Brain

Split screen of Arm Bones (check out the foot up by the arm on the right half of the picture)

Face Profile (with hand up by mouth)

Jen's Wedding

I made a super-short trip home last weekend to be a bridesmaid in Jennifer Parks (now Jennifer Hooker)'s wedding. It was exhausting, but I'm so glad I was able to be there for the big day. Jen and Brian looked great, and you could see so much love and happiness on their faces. (I spent a lot of the ceremony trying not to cry!) Didn't bring my camera, but here are a couple of photos from my dad.

Doctor Visit

We went to the doctor and sonographer today for our big halfway point visit. I'm going to keep this post brief, because I have to go pack for my trip home to Jen's wedding, but the doctor visit went great! All of the baby's body parts looked like they're developing appropriately, and he's still measuring a week older than my due date. Sonographer said 99% chance it's a boy. The coolest part was probably that the baby had the hiccups during the sonogram, so we could see his chest hiccupping!

Here's the growing belly!

We got a copy of the sonogram on DVD and tons of photos, but I didn't have time to scan them at school this afternoon. So, I took a quick photo of a couple of them...not good quality at all because of the shiny paper, but you can get the idea for now.

This is a picture of the baby's profile. There's a hand up by his mouth...maybe sucking his thumb?

And I like this one...cute split-screen shot of the two feet.

Once I get back from the trip, I'll see about trying to scan these photos and more so you can get a better view. Off to pack now!

19 Weeks and Counting...

19 1/2 weeks now. Feeling great overall, but still a relatively petite "bump." But, the kids in my class are starting to notice it. Some of them really like to touch my belly and talk to it- very cute. One little girl asks me multiple times every day, "How big is the baby now?" I've been trying to explain that it gets bigger every day, but very slowly. She looked at me yesterday, very seriously, and said, "Mrs. Dennison, I think you need to eat more. It's not big enough yet." The kids also think that the baby literally eats what I eat, because it lives in my belly. I'm going to let them keep thinking that, because I'm not about to explain about my uterus, placenta, umbilical cord, etc.

I'm stuck in HK alone this week. Nate is at a conference in DC. Luckily, he will finally come home Monday night after 8 days away. He figured this would be his last chance to go to a conference for a while, which is right because I'm not letting him out of the country alone again until our child is off to college. (Kidding.)

I've been feeling the baby move everyday for the past week or two. I guess that's an advantage of being on the smaller side-- there's less between me and the baby, so I can feel it more. According to what I read, the baby should be around 6 inches long from head to bum and weigh 8 oz. right now. At 20 weeks, it switches to head to heel length, because the baby's body is finally straight enough to measure the full length. The baby should be around 10 inches(!!!) and weigh 10.5 oz! So exciting!

It's hard to believe I'm half way there!

The Belly

So here it is...the belly. I don't usually wear shirts that show it off this well, but of course I had to for the photos! Still quite small, but maybe I'm finally kind of starting to look pregnant? Mind you, I just got another comment last night of, "Wow, you can't even tell!" And my TA's husband still doesn't even believe I'm really pregnant! All in due time, I guess.

Cool baby info for this week: The baby now has fingerprints, and crown-rump length is just over 5 inches. (From what I read, most doctors start measuring crown-heel length around 20 weeks onward.)

17 Week Update

We went back for another doctor visit this week. The doctor did a quick ultrasound just to check that everything looks good (and it did). We don't have a lot of good photos, but here are a couple to check out. The baby was upside down, so you can see the head at the bottom and part of the chest above that. In the top picture, you can see the eye, nose, and lips quite well.

We also had some really amazing views of an arm and leg. We could see all of the bones! Unfortunately the doctor didn't take a picture of those, because she was too busy looking for the baby's private parts. The umbilical cord was right between the baby's legs, so she couldn't get a very good shot, but she feels pretty sure it's a....drumroll please...BOY! No big surprise there since the Dennison men seem to only be able to produce boys. Good thing I'm a big fan of Carolina blue! :)

We go back at the very beginning of December for our big scan done by the sonographer to check all of the growth and development. We should be able to see some pretty amazing things by then, as well as hopefully getting a stronger confirmation of the gender. We can also get that scan on DVD, so we can share it with family at Christmas! How awesome is that?

As for me, I'm feeling way better over the last few weeks. The nausea is probably 95% gone, and I have significantly more energy. I'm finally starting to show, but I guess I'm pretty small for how far along I am, so I get a lot of, "You're how far along?!? Wow, you're hardly even showing!" That's kind of frustrating, because I am looking forward to being large enough that I'm clearly pregnant and not just fat in the belly area. I'll try to take a new belly photo soon and post it so you can decide for yourself!

Koh Lanta

Our second destination in Thailand was Koh Lanta, a two hour van & ferry trip from Krabi. We stayed at a very nice resort, as accommodations are much cheaper than in the US, Europe, or HK. Below was the view from our porch.


One of the highlights of our time in Lanta was a day-long 4 island tour. We spent the day riding around in a boat between islands, snorkeling and swimming through a cave. Unfortunately we don't have photos of the snorkeling or the cave, because we obviously couldn't take the camera i the water. But trust me, we saw some very cool fish and huge coral reefs! We saw angel fish, clown fish, a big eel, and a lionfish that had all kinds of fins and things sticking out from it. This is a picture of a lionfish I found online:


It was the only cloudy day we had while we were in Thailand, but this was quite possibly a good thing because we didn't get a bit sunburned!


My stud-- uh, I mean husband-- on the beach.

Typical view from the roads around the island.

The next photos are from our elephant trekking trip. The whole elephant trekking thing is a bit cliche if you ask me, but I couldn't pass up the chance because I quite like elephants. I read in our guidebook that it's actually good for the elephants because they were banned from working in certain parts of Thailand, like Bangkok, so tourists like us help support the elephants so they can live in remote areas and don't have to be put down.
This is a view from a clearing in the "jungle" where we were trekking.


Nate feeding bananas to our elephant after the ride.

Our elephant driver.

The baby elephant can do tricks!



One of my favorite parts of our entire trip to Thailand was kayaking through the mangroves and stumbling upon some wild monkeys! We fed them bananas. There was a whole family of monkeys, and they had surprisingly large teeth.





Here are a couple of photos of our resort. Lovely.

Infinity pool with the ocean in the background-- gotta love that!