Ultrasound pictures

Hi Everyone! Well, the 4-d ultrasound didn't go quite as expected. It seems that baby is sitting more towards my back than my front, so it was hard to get clear images. I promised that I tried everything I could to bring her forward, but she was content to sit at my back. The nurse was surprised taht I don't have soreness in my back because of how she is sitting! I did some jumping around in the bathroom to try to move her. I will say I was successful at moving her, but she just moved from my left hip to right, without anything else changing! In this first picture, you can see how she has her mom's chubby cheeks!!!

In this picture, if you look towards the right, you can see her big toe touching her forhead! She is amazingly flexible! Her eyes are closed in this picture.

Here is another profile.

I'll go back to the doctor's office on 3/8 to try to get some better pictures. The nurse felt bad because baby wasn't cooperating. If you've seen other people's 3d pictures, you'll know that these aren't nearly as good as they could be! Hopefully baby will be more cooperative the next time!!

Double Digits!!!

Oh my gosh! Okay, as many of you know, I LOVE babycenter.com. Many women post on their bulletin boards (take my word for it if you don't know what I'm talking about!), and lots of them have little tickers that say how far along they have and how many days until their due date. Well, I am 25 weeks and 6 days pregnant with only 99 days to go! My oh my, the time is flying by! I'll try to get a ticker so you all can see what I'm talking about. I'm not quite sure how they work, but give me a little while to see what I can do!

I'm back...Let's see how I did! This says that I'm already 26 weeks, but I know that my week doesn't change until Wednesday. Oh well! I'll take what I can get!

Prayer request

Hi everyone! This is my fun new way to get information out to you all, and I hope you are checking it frequently! Well, if you're looking at this, I guess you do check it, so thanks for keeping up!
Erik emailed me this morning to let me know that one of the wives of a guy he works with went into early labor this weekend. She is 34 weeks pregnant, and her water broke at some point this weekend. The doctors did some kind of test, only to find out that the baby's lungs haven't completely developed, so they are trying to keep her from having the baby. Since her water broke, the mom-to-be has been in the hospital. Dad-to-be said that her body is producing more amniotic fluid, but she has to be kept at an angle so that it doesn't leak. Please pray that she will be able to squeeze her legs shut for at least a little while longer while the baby continues to develop. The mom's name is Irasema (Ear-uh-say-muh), and the father's name is Arturo. I don't know the baby's name yet. If I get any updates, I'll let you all know! Thanks!

25 weeks and baby is jumping

Maybe the baby isn't jumping, but I promise that I saw my belly do a little jump yesterday! It was the coolest thing ever! I was sitting in LapCorp, the place where I had to rush to after school yesterday to get my diabetes test, and while I was sitting there I saw my belly do a little dance. It was amazing! I have noticed that the baby is kicking more and moving around more, but that was the first time I got to see it. Of course, she fell asleep or something by the time Erik was home, so he didn't get to see it. I also didn't get my normal dose of sugar because I was trying to keep my glucose level down so I could pass the test and not have to go for the 3 hour trial!
I just can't wait until next Tuesday. I'm going to be hopped up on sugar the whole day to make sure that baby is moving for her next ultrasound! Maybe after we see her then we can finalize the name. This whole name thing is a lot harder than I thought! You always think that you like a name, but then you think about the fact that the baby might not look like the name that you've chosen, or maybe it won't fit them. Ugh! And they're stuck with it for the rest of their life! I'm afraid I can't handle all of this thinking this morning.

Flash 12K

Here is a picture of the trophy I brought home from my latest race. I finished 3rd (out of 5 or 6 probably) in my age group. It was a cold morning (18 degrees) at the 8:30am start, and that probably scared away some of the runners and most of the spectators (read Lisa). Lisa noticed, as you might have, that it is a lady on the trophy. I was, of course, a little upset.

Actually, this race let you pick anything on a prize table in order of finish. Prizes included lots of superhero items which were the theme of the race. At the start, the runners were lead off by a guy in a Flash costume, and the shirt had a pair of sneakers with golden wings coming out of them.

The ladies got to go first and Drew, a teacher friend of Lisa's, got a Superman figure. I had my eye on a Spiderman figure for Lisa's classroom, but that was snatched up by one of the ladies. I thought I would get the next best thing--a trophy for her to show off. Things are still on track for the Seaside half marathon March 4th. Lisa will be there for that one, but I think she's just going for the vacation.

24 weeks/6 months

Wow! As crazy as it may seem, I am officially 6 months pregnant! Actually, I don't like the way doctors figure your month. They do 4 weeks per month, which we all (hopefully!) know only really happens in February. While I get to tell people that I am now 6 months pregnant, I also will have to wait until 10 months to have baby. Weird, huh? I will be posting a picture of myself later this afternoon. I don't think that I'm that much bigger than my last picture, but people are really starting to comment on me being pregnant! I have only had one person say, "Oh, you are getting big!" I told that girl that she is allowed to say it now, but if she says it in another 3 months, she might get hit. :)

Also, on February 27th at 3:30, Erik and I will go for my 3D/4D ultrasound. I'm pretty excited about it. The nurse that I talked to yesterday when I made the appointment said to eat right before I come, and to have some sugar while waiting to start the ultrasound. We are going to buy the video, and it would be pretty boring to just watch the baby sleep the whole time. I think it's going to be really neat to show baby what she looked like before she was born. I've already thought about having the video handy at all times--especially when boys start coming around!!! (I better make extra copies so she doesn't destroy it!!!!!)

Name of the week

Hmmm...there have been so many good names suggested in the past week, that I'm not sure I can come up with another good one! I had a girl ask me this weekend what names we were thinking of, so I rattled of the ones that you all have suggested. Here is a list of some of those names:

1. Ro'neesha
2. A'Leesha
3. Unique (pronounced You-knee-qwa)
4. Sexy Beth

I hate to admit that there is really a person out there with the name "Sexy Beth". She is a student at my mom's elementary (!) school. The teacher wouldn't say "Sexy" when calling the student's name. The mother of said student called and complained to the teacher that this is the girl's given name, and that's what the mother would like for the teacher to call her! Poor thing!

Why I love teaching...

I feel like it's my birthday today. I don't even remember telling my first period class that we were going to have a fiesta today, but in they came with food and gifts!! I guess I should tell you that we had FCAT today. For those of you that don't know, FCAT is a standardized test that high school students had to take. Because of the testing schedule and my own class schedule, I will only see 2 classes today. I had two students bring me baby gifts this morning, and one bring me a blueberry muffin from Starbucks! That's the only thing from Starbucks that I've ever had, and I LOVE IT! I have a couple of gifts to open this afternoon from my 7th period class. I can't believe that they actually went out and bought stuff! One student even brought me a "balloon boquet" made of pink balloons that say, "it's a girl". Bonus points are being given out left and right today!

Names...

Erik and I are getting a lot of questions about what we are naming the baby now that we know it's a girl. We have decided to try out new names each week until baby is born. That way we'll have lots of names to choose from. This weeks name will be--
Sha'knee-qwa
Please don't forget to use the apostrophe and dash!

Welcome!

I know that we are copying Nick and Robyn, but we got their permission!!
We finally know that we are having a girl, so it seems appropriate that we start blogging. Here are a couple of other things that we know so far:

1. I am 22 weeks along.
2. I felt her move for the first time at 19 weeks and 2 days, while sitting at my computer at school.
3. At 22 weeks exactly, Erik felt her move for the first time. I think she headbutted him to get his attention and announce her presence! :)
4. At 22 weeks and 2 days, baby weighed 1 pound 3 ounces, and her heartbeat was 144 bpm.
5. I'm very happy that I have only gained 7 pounds so far!!! (Now I weigh 117)