My Twelfth Week

Well, I'm 13 weeks pregnant!

12 weeks 2 days

Week 12 was pretty good!

The highlight of the week was my NT Scan and 12 week ultrasound.  This is the the scan where they take lots of measurements of the baby to determine if it looks normal or if it looks to be higher risk for Down's Syndrome.  I also got a finger prick so they could test my blood.  I don't have the official results yet, but the ultrasound tech said everything looked really good to her.  I will admit, I had a tiny bit of anxiety going in for this because it was my first ultrasound back at my OB office.  I even had the same tech that had been there for at least one of my miscarriages, and she remembered us.  It was great to finally have a good ultrasound there and be able to feel like that was out of the way.

As far as the actual ultrasound went, it was a cool one.  This was my first time having an ultrasound on my stomach instead of the trans vaginal, so I had the goo squirted on my stomach like you usually see in movies. The baby definitely looked bigger and more developed than the last two ultrasounds- more like an actual baby.  The tech would shake or push on my tummy to get the baby to move and it would float around til it was in the position the tech wanted to measure.  It was really cool to see the baby with an actual facial profile and knees bent and legs kicking.  The heartbeat was still sounding good too, about 169 BPM.

We won't have another ultrasound til the anatomy scan, when we find out the gender, around 18-20 weeks, so it'll be a long while til we get to see our little flutterbug again.  I do have one appointment before then, and the nurse assured me we'll use the Doppler to check the heartbeat then.

Upon leaving the appointment, things suddenly started to feel very REAL.  I feel like all of the first trimester I've just been waiting to get over that hump before I committed to getting really serious about planning for this baby.  All the sudden I got this overwhelming sense that we need to start figuring things out!  Greg and I are discussing some options of how to handle nursery furniture.

• One option would be to use some our bedroom furniture (we have a long dresser that's the right height to double as a dresser and changing table) and try to find a crib that matches, which would enable us to get new bedroom furniture.  Greg really wants a king sized bed and is kind of over our stuff, so his logic is that this would kill two birds with one stone.  The problem I see with this are that we'd have to find a crib that matches our dresser really well (because I'm anal).  Also, the idea of finding all new bedroom furniture kind of overwhelms me.  We have SIX pieces of bedroom furniture, so that is a lot of new stuff we'd need to replace.  Finding us new bedroom furniture in the middle of planning for a baby might be a lot.
• Another option is using a dresser and book shelf we saw at IKEA and like.  This again would entail finding a crib that matches really well and that we like, and I think that might be difficult, as the wood was for matte on the IKEA stuff and from what I have seen, most cribs seem more shiny/lacquered.
• The third option is just to get a new crib and matching dresser.  This might be easiest option since we don't have to match anything else, but maybe not the cheapest option.  

We also really need to start visiting daycare centers and choosing one, which will probably be difficult with Greg's schedule.  The good news is that I have confirmed that I can take SIX months (WAHOO!) of maternity leave, so we have about a year before we need childcare.  Still, I've heard the waiting lists can be long, so I want to get the ball rolling anyway.

This wasn't my best food week.  I didn't have too many strong cravings and had a lot of times when nothing really sounded appealing.  At the beginning of the week I got sick a couple times.  At the end of the week I did have a strong craving for rotisserie chicken and fresh corn on the cob, so I made that happen and it was like the best meal ever!

Weight gain is still practically nothing, but I do think the tummy is growing, even if it's still not very noticeable.  I wore a pair of pants to work that usually have some room in and they were so tight I could not wait to get them off by the end of the day.  I think I'm "retiring" them til after birth.  I have one pair of work maternity pants on standby for that day when I go into my closet and can't find anything that fits.  I'm not there yet, but I can tell it's coming.  I'm also definitely gravitating towards flowy clothes, like the top in the picture below.

I finished off the week by visiting my friend Sara and saw and held little Elena.  Seeing babies is starting to feel really different to me now.  I find myself asking a lot of questions and trying to soak up all the new mom knowledge like a sponge.

Elena is a sweetie!  Such a good baby.  She let me hold her for a while and was very alert and looked at me for a while :)  Sarah seemed to be doing well too.

That pretty much sums of week 13!  Can't believe I'm entering the second trimester now!