21 Weeks and a pic

Here is my pic that I promised.  Finally.  Sorry about that.  I'll try to get better ones when B gets home next weekend.

Anyway, I'm 21 weeks today.
Baby:
* is about 7.5-10.5" long (about the length of the carrot says BabyCenter.com)
* is about .75 lbs (12.25 oz)
* is kicking up a storm.  He's getting close to my ribs already.  I'm already seeing a pattern of kicking all night and resting most of the day.  (preparing me).  I still haven't felt him on the outside but they are definitely stronger kicks and I expect B should be able to feel them soon!
* has eyebrows and eyelids now, but he still can't see.
* gets a better sense of touch this week. Soon I will get to poke him back and he will feel it.

I'm:
* getting round ligament pains
* enjoying some hellish heartburn
* tired.  The fatigue is back full power.
* noticeably pregnant.  Someone cautiously asked me the other day.
* getting a bit short of breath at times.  I'm assuming I'm getting a bit of pressure on my diaphragm now.

Work is going great.  I'm doing some kick ass training.  It is a lot of information in a short period of time, but I'm enjoying it.  I can't explain how excited I am to have this job.  The people are friendly, helpful, and extremely knowledgeable.  I do my mission fit interviews this coming week so hopefully I should know which office/team I will be working on in the next two weeks.  I'll get a mentor to help me focus my training and prep to go on the client side to work.

Mika is doing really really well with some loose leash training.  Although strangely enough she barked aggressively at a dog across the street today.  Something I don't think I've ever seen her do.  Now the other dog started barking first, but I've just never seen her act that way.  She lunged a couple times and I had to hold her collar to get her calm.  She didn't pull like she does when she sees a bunny or deer, but it just caught  me off guard.  We might have to start going to the dog park and training a bit in there off leash with tons of distractions to get her to start paying attention to me and B more during distractions.    On a good note, she has been home alone for long hours without getting into anything.  She pretty frequently gets something or other while we are gone.  Something she doesn't do when we are home.  She has been going to campbowwow twice a week to run some energy out of her.  She will probably go less when B is back.

B is in Europe visiting family.  I'm sad I didn't get to go, but I think he is enjoying himself.  I'm glad he got to go though.  I can't wait to hear all about it!  We don't mess with international call fees.  We've been emailing, and I've gotten a few details, but can't wait to sit around and hear about it in detail.  (oh and I hear that I'm getting swiss chocolate!)

It's a....

BOY!

We had our anatomy scan today and found out early in the scan that our little (heirloom) tomato (approximate size at 19 weeks) is a boy.  He was very very active and the ultrasound tech had to chase him all over to get all the pictures she needed.  I'm betting I will soon be getting sore ribs and internal organs from this activity, but right now it still feels like little flicks of the finger or (what I think) a kernel of popcorn would feel like if it popped in my belly.  We will get the full report about development in September.  The fun parts are the cute pictures we got out of it and learning the sex.  Thankfully he mostly cooperated!

No names decided yet!  We still have a ways to go on this, but we have plenty of time.  I'm a few days shy of "half way" based on due date.  We'll be thinking hard about it.

Without further ado, here is our little boy showing off for the ultrasound wand!

Yum Yum hand!  It is pretty obvious where the head, arms, and legs are.  The darker spot towards the top of the torso is the heart.  

Still waving his hands in his face.  

The whitish area on the back of the torso is the spinal column.

Long legs and feet...you can even see the toes a bit

This is our alien baby.  Alien head to the right, freakish single foot with four toes on the left.  Bwahahaha. 

Check out his other side.  Which is more photogenic?  

A bit blurred, but you can see some bones (the bright white areas)

And this is the shot that showed us that he is a boy.  Butt to the right, legs to the left, and the middle part shows his parts.  It was more clear a few times on the screen, but the tech didn't capture it in time.  Brian and I both noticed it before she got this picture and told us.  This was no more than 5 minutes into the scan, so we were lucky that baby cooperated!

Our tech was super nice and very cool.  She even spent a few minutes after the official picture getting for the anatomy scan requirements to show us some good profiles that got us some of these pictures.  I still find ultrasounds totally cool.  And it was pretty amazing how the tech could find the kidneys and heart and just zone in on them in seconds.  Sometimes it was just a different shade and I never would have thought it was anything special.  The heartbeat was nice and strong and about 156bpm.  He is very active.

Maternity Ward Tour

Brian and I took a maternity ward tour yesterday.  We took it pretty early because it is only offered on Tuesdays at 1300 (1pm) and I don't want to miss work and I start next week.

So Bethesda is a pretty cool hospital when it comes to delivery.  I am pleased after the tour.  I feel like they are a happy medium when it comes to policy.  Here are the highlights.

I will labor, deliver and do a few hours of recovery in the same room.  All rooms have one bed, a rocking chair, a birthing ball, squat/birthing bars, a small fold out couch (the nurse recommended air mattresses over the couches), a few chairs, a spacious bathroom with a walk-in, sit-in shower, the baby's hospital bassinet thingy, TV, and probably anything else you can think of except for a birthing tub.  The rooms themselves are very spacious and could probably hold 4-5 people comfortably even with staff coming in and out.  They showed us how they take apart the bed for delivery and explained how it helps when baby comes out.  They have posters of suggested positions for the birthing ball, allow you to labor in the shower for a bit (not birth there), require 20 minutes out of every hour to be on a monitor (but I can move around when not on the monitor).

Since the staff is there on rotating shifts and you can't guarantee a specific provider for your delivery, no one is in a rush so they can go home, go on vacation, etc.  The surgeons and anesthesiologists are on the same type of shift schedule and most are military.  None are paid by the procedure so there is no pressure for epidurals or csections although their csection rate is close to all the other hospitals in the area.

Babies stay in the room with mom at all times except for a few exceptions:  weighing (out in the hall) and a few standard tests/procedures that we can accompany if we want.  All nurses and main staff members are trained to assist with breastfeeding, latching, etc and lactation consultants are available about 14 hours a day during the weekdays.  As a first time mom, I'll be required to stay for 48 hours before release even if everything is peachy.  They provide everything that is needed for baby except the take home outfit/blanket and carseat (which they inspect to make sure baby fits into correctly before we are allowed to leave.  They also highly encourage us to take the carseat with our car to the fire department just outside the hospital to ensure that the carseat fits right in our car and we know how to lock it in).   They even encourage that we take home all the diapers, bulb syringe/nose thingies, brushes (great for cradle cap apparently but are OR brushes so they can't be bought), wipes, pretty much everything but their shirts and blankets.

It is a training hospital so there may be doctors in training helping with delivery and any other procedures.  I get PAs, Nurse Practitioners, etc in training all the time so I'm not too concerned about this.  When anything complex or important is happening, the (attending? is that the right word?) fully qualified doctor is there to supervise.   For the less important stuff (asking questions, routine stuff like checking pulse and stuff) they might be there on their own, but the qualified doctor dude follows up.  Some people seem concerned about this (one person asked "Can we refuse a training doctor?"), but it doesn't bother me really.  I know I won't be their first patient.  It takes a lot to get to that level.  I don't know all the details of how, but I'm pretty sure every form of medical training requires education on childbirth.

Immediately upon birth, baby and mom get tagged with what they jokingly call baby Lojack.  Babies don't even leave the room for the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) until this band is on.  These tags will cause an alarm that goes off if the baby leaves the maternity ward.  This alarm locks down the hospital and the entire post until all babies currently admitted to the ward are accounted for.  The NICU and csection operating rooms, etc are all right down the hall in the same ward.  So once mom is admitted she really doesn't leave the general area.

They reminded us all that they appreciate birthing plans, but that everything is driven by the mother's body and the baby and sometimes due to those two factors, they can't stick to the plan.  Their policies are pretty liberal.  I can have clear foods and liquids (Jello, sprite, popsicles, water, etc).  I can labor in almost any position and even when being monitored, the cord is pretty long and will allow me to reach the ball, rocker, etc.  We can rearrange the room in almost any way we want.  They encourage the baby be delivered to the mother's belly/chest, dad can cut the cord if he wants, they do everything possible to get baby breastfeeding within an hour after delivery (usually sooner and they highly encourage breastfeeding).

Overall I feel very comfortable with this hospital and the setup/policies.  I'm actually afraid I will be a bit spoiled with this, and with my next kid I won't have great facilities.  For all I know though, this stuff can all be pretty standard.  I just feel like I hear about some hospitals requiring a bunch of stuff to make life easier on the staff or because that is how it was done in the past and putting the mothers' wants at the bottom of the list.  (Hell, they even has a snack room where they keep popsicles, jello, etc for us to use during labor).