Baby Ipod

Elizabeth and I have come to the realization that we will need to expand our music tastes to kiddie-songs. I'm not really down with the cutesy-ness of it all, but hey, I like cheesy, pop music so this is just a step below that. This past week I've been singing to myself, "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Knees and toes". And, this morning I caught Elizabeth singing "The itsy-bitsy spider". I just hope I don't end up accidentally talking to my buddies or co-workers in baby-talk.

Music will definitely play a role in our family life so before the music classes and the sort; we need also need to start kiddy-ing up the ipod. But, what do I put? The Wiggles? They remind me of the creepy, nice guys that you don't want women and young children around. Teletubbies? - It looks like something I would see if I dropped some LSD under my tongue and sucked on a pacifier. I think I'd rather play some opera arias and classical music to the baby instead of that crap. I guess I could go with the standard kid stuff since it's better than a stupid, purple dinosaur.

Kiddy-ing out the ipod doesn't mean just adding kid songs to the playlist, we also have to clean out some of the not-so-kid-friendly songs. Thankfully, Elizabeth has agreed to offer her ipod as a sacrifice and be cleansed. We'll have to take out the Smashing Pumpkins, Nickleback, etc. and any leftover gansta-rap. If not, I could see myself cruising down the freeway with Baby Sanchez and listening to the ipod. Then, the next song would be Fergie's London Bridge (explicit version) screaming, "Ohhh Shit!(echo, echo, echo)" I'd rather not expose Baby Sanchez to that stuff until much, much later in life.

So the next few months, I'll probably loading up on country music and praise-and-worship.

The Halfway Point!

YAY! We've made it to the middle of our journey to bottles, baby blankets, and binkies! Yesterday I was looking on iTunes for tracks of baby noises (so Miss Maddie doesn't freak out when she suddenly finds herself big sister to an unfamiliar noise maker), and came across a whole bunch of kids' music that made me realize we have no clue the ways our lives are about to change.

So now that I'm at 20 weeks, the belly is supposed to start growing by leaps and bounds. I've already started feeling little baby movements closer to my belly button (which is oddly not quite front and center anymore...I just hope it finds its way home once this is all over!). It won't be long before the baby is taking up space previously dedicated to things like breathing and digestion!

Anyway, below is the info on Baby this week, as always, borrowed from babycenter.com.

20 Weeks
You've made it to the halfway mark — congratulations! Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now (Elizabeth's Note: LAST week we were told ours weighs 11 ounces already! Yipes!). She's around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom, and about 10 inches from head to heel. (For the first 20 weeks, we use measurements taken from the top of the baby's head to her bottom — known as the "crown to rump" measurement. After that, we use measurements from head to toe. This is because a baby's legs are curled up against her torso during the first half of pregnancy and are very hard to measure.)

A greasy white substance called vernix caseosa coats your baby's entire body to protect her skin during its long submersion in amniotic fluid. This slick coating will also ease the journey down the birth canal when the time comes.

Your baby is swallowing more, which is good practice for her digestive system. She's also producing meconium, a black, sticky substance that's made up of dead cells, digestive secretions, and swallowed amniotic fluid. This meconium will accumulate in her bowels, and you'll see it in her first messy diaper (although a few babies pass it in utero or during delivery).

Daddy can write post, too!

Elizabeth has added me as another writer on the Baby Sanchez blog. I don't have much to write tonight since I should be in bed by now. The picture below pretty much sums it all up. I call it, "Future-father gazing at the metaphorical bun-in-the-oven"

Belly Pics! 19 weeks, 5 days

This week I thought I'd post a side shot AND a front shot. The belly is still growing - slowly but surely pushing me out of regular clothes and into maternity ones, even though one of my coworkers still thinks I only look like I ate a large meal! It is hard to believe that Baby Sanchez makes up less than a pound of the 10 I've already gained. At least the 10 lbs is only showing up around my middle...well that and my backside.

So this week has been pretty eventful, but since I've already commented on most of it, I will just post my pic today. The only major development that I haven't really mentioned is that Fred can now feel the baby's kicks and flips as well! Wednesday night he thought he felt the baby, but wasn't really sure if he was feeling the baby or me. By Friday night, (Baby Sanchez was throwing a party in there, seriously!) Fred was definitely feeling the baby bumping around.


Otherwise, there isn't really much else of interest to report since our ultrasound on Thursday. I am looking forward to my next appointment to get another look at Baby Sanchez - and hopefully some great pictures too! Have a great week!

Ultrasound - A whole lot of backside!

So today we went for the big ultrasound! It was pretty amazing to see our baby on the screen. She was moving around so much and really made the ultrasound tech work to get the measurements. I enlarged the screen so you can see the baby's spine running across it. While we did get the chance to see some pretty cool things, like our baby's arms, hands, legs, and heart, she was camera shy and turned her back on us! The tech could not get any shots of her face, and couldn't have told us if she was a he if we'd wanted to know. Helps make the decision of "to find out or not to find out" a lot easier when the baby makes that decision for you :-). I am scheduled for one more ultrasound so they can check for any sign of a clef lip/palate, but the doctor says that everything else looks great!

Thank God that our little baby is growing just as she should and we did not get any unpleasant surprises today. The baby measures right anywhere from 19 weeks to 19 weeks, 5 days on all measurments and weighs around 11 oz! That is a little bigger than the "average" posted on babycenter. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until the next ultrasound in hopes of a good picture. Since Baby Sanchez was uncooperative today, the tech did not get any good shots (except of things like kidneys!) for us to take home. I am glad Fred had the camera handy, though, to at least let us post something!

Baby Boogie - 19 Weeks

Just thought I'd share a little of what is going on with our baby at 19 weeks! He certainly is getting to be a big boy - or girl!

Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces, and he measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the length of a small zucchini. His arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of his body now. His kidneys continue to make urine, and the hair on his scalp is sprouting. If your baby is a girl, she has an astonishing six million eggs in her ovaries.
This is a crucial time for sensory development: Your baby's brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. While you may think your womb is a quiet place, it's far from it and your baby may be able to hear what's going on now. What's he listening to? The main sounds are blood moving through your vessels, digestive noises from your stomach, and your voice. Some women like to talk directly to their babies, but even if you don't, your baby can still hear you as you talk to others. Research shows that he's learning to distinguish your voice from others and he'll soon show a preference for it. Studies have shown that when a pregnant woman speaks, her baby's heart rate will decrease, indicating relaxation. Let Dad get in on the act too — encourage him to talk to your baby.

*copied from babycenter.com

Uh oh, A day late!

18 Weeks, 6 Days
So first let me apologize to everyone who checked in this morning only to find that I haven't posted a single update all week! I have been sick! I don't know how good/bad this is for Baby Sanchez, but being sick translated to very little interest in food. That means not much of a weight gain this week! Not sure that the belly has grown a whole lot in that time, but you can see for yourself. Gotta love the flowing drawstring skirt, though-it should last a little while!

Unfortunately, last Monday night I started to feel a little not-normal; it turns out I was coming down with the flu (or something like it)! After a week of trying to recuperate, I am finally feeling better, although still a little fatigued at times.

The whole being sick and pregnant thing was a little traumatizing. After trying and failing to sleep all night and realizing I had a temperature over 101 degrees - I hit "9" for YES this is an emergency! when I called my Dr.'s office at 6 AM. Really I had just been hoping to leave a message so someone would call me back first thing when they opened but since I didn't get that option... Well of course first I hung up, called my Mom, who was on the Atlantic coast, and followed her instructions and got myself in touch with my doctor. She did call me back, though I did not get much more than the standard, "control the fever with tylenol, rest, and drink plenty of fluids. Very few things you can catch will cross the placenta and affect the baby." Apparently that was all I really needed to sleep - reassurance that I wasn't a crock pot cooking Baby Sanchez inside of me!

Other getting stuck inside an oven for a few days, its been a pretty uneventful week for Baby Sanchez. Thursday is a big day though; we go in for more baby portraits from our "big ultrasound." They are going to check to make sure everything is growing just as it should, so keep us in your prayers! I will post those shots Thursday or Friday :-).

"Are you going to eat that?"

17 Weeks, 5 Days

The baby and I are both going through a growth spurt! Yes, those ARE maternity pants I'm wearing. While I still have a good number of pants that still fit, the maternity ones are sooo comfy! With the way I've been eating though, my maternity pants are going to be the only pair that fits before too long.

Normally, I am not a girl with a huge appetite. It doesn't take much to fill me up. In the last couple of weeks, however, I have been cleaning my plate and looking for more (to Fred's plate if he isn't eating fast enough!). The whole thing boggles my mind! Last week, for Mo's birthday, we went to Pappasitos and I had chips, chips and more chips, queso, 2 heaping fajitas (I'm usually beyond stuffed after 1-1/2), rice, beans, a sopapia, and STILL would have been willing to eat. One day I swallowed the last bite of my lunch, decided I was still hungry, and had a PBJ. Yipes! No wonder I was on my way to gaining 5 lbs in 2 weeks! So, as you may guess, I am focusing on eating a little better ;-).

All in all, I have found this growing belly thing pretty intriguing. This morning, lying on my back, I thought I would try to feel my uterus, since supposedly I should be able to feel it. It is probably a good thing that I never went into the medical field, because as far as I can tell, my belly is still all mush. But this morning as I was pushing down I felt a hard spot! Whoa! But it was only about the size of a quarter. I pushed on it a little harder and it moved and I couldn't feel it anymore. How exciting, I touched my baby! (who knew! There is actually someone in there! actually, how weird...) Of course, then I thought, uh oh, maybe I am not supposed to push on my fragile little baby like that! Then, of course, to keep me in a quasi-freaked out state, my baby did not make any movements I could feel for several hours. It probably didn't help that I was actively organizing stuff at the house (that darn nesting instinct!), but still. Anyway, Baby Sanchez does not seem to have any ill effects from being pushed on this morning and has been happily bouncing around my insides all afternoon.

Our Little Onion

Yes, as my friend Jeannette mentioned, our baby is pretty much refered to as being the size of various fruits and vegitables. Our little onion baby; we just hope he doesn't have bad breath.

Our Baby at 17 Weeks

Your baby weighs about 5 ounces now, and he's around 5 inches long — about the size of a large onion. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now, rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden into bone. Some of it will remain cartilage for years after he's born. A newborn's skeleton has 300 parts (a combination of bone and cartilage). As your child grows, some of these parts harden and fuse together. By the time your baby reaches adulthood, he'll have just 206 bones.

*Copied from babycenter.com

What about Baby?

Our baby at 16 weeks:

At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado. In the next three weeks, she'll go through a tremendous growth spurt, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. Her lower limbs are much more developed now. Her head is more erect than it has been, and her eyes have moved toward the front of her head. Your baby's ears are close to their final position, too. Some of her more advanced body systems are working, including her circulatory system and urinary tract. The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn't recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she's even started growing toenails. Her finger - and toenails will continue to grow throughout pregnancy, so don't be surprised if she needs them trimmed soon after birth.

*As copied from babycenter.com

Grow, Belly, Grow! (16 weeks, 5 days)

It can no longer be denied the belly is growing!! Even I'm looking at the most recent picture and thinking, "Whoa! No wonder my clothes are getting pretty tight!" Actually, every morning it is quite a task to dress for work (t-shirts still fit, so weekends are easier!) because I like all of my shirts to be pretty snug and fitted. This translates to most of my shirts no longer buttoning without pulling, all my knit tops accentuating the growing bump or getting close to showing the lovely skin underneath, and pretty much a difficult dressing situation all around. I like low-rise pants, so I can still get through the day in most of them, but not for too much longer!

So, after browsing online and deciding that Old Navy had some stuff at standard Old Navy prices, I thought I'd give it a look. Everything looked SO CUTE online, but not so cute on me. Almost NOTHING looked like it would EVER fit even my changing body. The biggest problem was that the clothes did not have ties or elastic or stretchiness to make them look okay NOW, even though maybe they would be okay in a few more months. I bought a couple of things, but will go to Motherhood this week and try again.

So, in other news, I am now hoping for a baby boy :-P, only because today was St. Thomas High School's Round Up, and I won a basket fully of cute baby boy stuff. There were two baskets, one for a girl and one for a boy, and Mom and I equally filled the boxes of both with our tickets, and ended up with this one. I almost thought I'd won BOTH because the first name of the lady who won the girl basket is also Elizabeth. Wouldn't that have been funny!? I am glad we got this one, though, and not the one for the girl, because there is more crossover use when there isn't any pink :-).

Until next time, have a good one!