15 weeks and feeling great. :)

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. Been, well, busy! Charlie and I have made a few big life decisions in the last couple of weeks that have taken a lot of intentional conversation and planning, and I have been working three jobs and developing new hobbies and habits in between. Everything is still fine and fulfilling.

Here is our latest baby update. We're great! Baby Chapman is doing wonderfully, growing like the proverbial weed, and has impressed the midwives with its...normalness. :) I have been feeling fine, some headaches and tiredness, but nothing concerning. Belly is getting bigger by the day, as is the little one, and I am relishing the fact that I was really into the peasant-top, baby-doll shirts a while ago, because they're pretty much the only ones that are fitting me comfortably these days! My pants are fitting fine, even loose since I've actually lost weight during these active weeks in AK. Apparently that's normal for women that are plus-size going into pregnancy. I just know that I feel healthy and energetic, that I can cross-country ski like the dickens and walk daily, and that I am sleeping much better and learning to eat (correctly) for two!

We had such an incredibly fulfilling ultrasound last week, as well as a nice midwife appointment. My friend Sierra accompanied me to take pictures and hold my hand :) and we had a blast as our ultrasound tech showed us the little one in all its glory. The main reason we went was to have the nuchal-3 screening done; its an ultrasound and bloodwork procedure that screens for Down's and other chromosomal abnormalities, as well as some heart conditions. Our midwife visit was short and sweet: "Healthy weight, nice rosy cheeks, great blood pressure and pulse, no weird symptoms, belly feels good...I'd say you're doing great! Next!" :) We DID hear the baby's heartbeat, what a beautiful sound! 140bpm, safe and healthy.

After a quick lunch at Great Harvest Breads, we went to AK Family Sonograms for the ultrasound. I had gone the week before and they hadn't been able to get the measurement they needed because both my uterus and the baby were positioned in a way that wasn't conducive to measuring the back of the neck and nasal bone. THIS time, however, they got everything they needed and more (even my blood!) :) We met our tech, a dry-humored gal, and she led us to the ultrasound room. She found the baby right away...the little one was standing on its head, right on my cervix. We laughed and gasped as she led us through as much of the baby's anatomy as she could. She was such a great...errmm, tour guide ("and on the left there's a little hand, as we come to the abdomen you can see the heart beating strongly, now we'll make our way down to its legs...") and I wasn't anything but joyful watching our little baby hanging out.

However, she still couldn't get a measurement the old-fashioned way, so in order to see the baby more clearly she then proposed a vaginal ultrasound. I was all for it, and was immediately glad I was...the clarity of the picture was phenomenal without the layers of muscle and fat to go through! She got the measurements she needed for the screening and we saw such incredible shots of our baby. At one point it turned and faced the camera. For the first time I was looking our baby in the face, and it was a mixed moment of pure emotion...pure love, and pure fear (it kinda looked like a velociraptor...). After two full hours of looking at baby Chapman it was time to go. The tech printed us off pictures and made a CD of video clips and more photos that she'd taken for us as she went. Here are the results of our 14 week ultrasound:

a little footie

crown to rump length...it's about the size of a lemon!

amazing detail. nice looking brain, eh? :)

Either a velociraptor or the Terminator, I can't tell.

Umbilical cord connecting to the placenta!

All stretched out in there

Our little acrobat

We'll let you be the judge here...The arrow is pointing to a little something that could be swollen labia, a little penis or the remnants of the tail not yet gone from the little one. The tech was 90% sure it was a wiener, but we're still open-minded, although I have almost no doubt that it's a boy. Been thinking it ever since we found out. However, we are hoping for HEALTHY!

Wish us luck as we round the bend into our fourth month! We have decided not to officially determine the sex of the baby till I get home, since Charlie has already missed out on a fair share of ultrasound amazingness. I did make him a sweet DVD on my computer of all the ultrasound videoclips and pictures I had, but it's not the same. We miss each other terribly and are looking forward to my last trip home. :)