Cute!

Heather was out shopping the other day for maternity clothes. You might think they would be with the women's clothes. But no. Some smart marketing folks decided that maternity clothes should go with the baby clothes. Their strategy worked. Heather was sucked in and bought her first baby clothes - a present for me.

Oopsy Daisy

Each week I get an e-mail from this website I subscribe to telling me what to expect during the current stage of my pregnancy. This week's read like this:

"You're 17 Week's Pregnant
Starting to feel a bit off balance? Your center of gravity shifts as your belly grows, so you may occasionally feel a little unsteady on your feet. Pregnancy hormones may make your eyes dry and dull your vision. Contact lenses may feel uncomfortable, too. Over-the-counter eye drops often help. Inside, your baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone, and the umbilical cord, her lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker."

Well, I should have taken those first two sentences a little more to heart. Yesterday as I was walking down to the garage I slipped off the last step and twisted my ankle pretty bad. I made sure to ice and wrap it and luckily, it doesn't seem to have swollen up.Unfortunatelyly, walking up and down stairs is a pain - and we have 33 stairs in our house! Now, alone that is bad enough. But, just for fun let's take a look at the last week and a half or so -

A week and a half ago walking down the same stairs I slipped at the top and fell a few stairs down before my hip and arm caught me.

This week in class I managed to cut myself twice with scissors.

The times I've slipped, bumped into something, or just plain been wobbly are too numerous to count.

So, needles to say, I'm trying to be as carefull as possible, but sheesh! Let's hope this unsteadiness doesn't get worse!!

It's a...

Wait...what is that umbilical cord doing in the way? At our ultrasound appointment today we started with an umbilical cord blocking the main show and thought we may not be able to find out the sex of our baby.

We did get to see a lot of cool stuff though. We saw the brain and even the separation of the right and left brain. We also saw the heart - complete with all four chambers and blood going in and out. I think my favorite was seeing the spine - it looked like a little zipper down the back. Our little one is already taking after Dave in one aspect - wiggling! Whew! There was no stopping that kid. Waving, kicking, rolling over, you name it! It was amazing to see all of that going on inside of me when I don't feel anything at all. The good news was that one of those wiggles moved the umbilical cord and...

It's a GIRL! For those keeping score - I swore it was a boy and Dave swore it was a girl, so that's a point for Dave ;-)

Her head and femur were measured to check the age and she's about 16 1/2 weeks which keeps her due date at March 1st.

Our ultrasound tech said couples usually leave with about three pictures, but we left with eight because she was putting on such a performance (she must get that from me - now if only they made really tiny batons)!

Up next...I have an appointment in about a month with my OB (who will be back from maternity leave) and then it's back to school for mom and dad. Dave and I will be taking some classes through Kaiser to figure out exactly how to take care of this little lady when she joins us in March.

Note: Click on the link to the Reuterskiold Web Gallery on the right to see all the pictures!

Baby Bump

Well, I'm finally starting to show a little bit, so I thought it was time to start documenting the inevitable growth. This picture is at 15 weeks. The selection of clothes in my closet that I can actually wear is getting smaller every day. This weekend I actually went out with jeans on and the top button just undone with a long shirt on because I couldn't find anything else that was clean and fit! I did attempt to get some maternity clothes, but I'm not quite big enough for those yet, so I guess I'll just make do.

I'm still feeling mostly great. My new best friend is called Tums and comes in a little bottle, but besides that things are good.

I finally spilled the beans to my class and staff this week. Mostly becuase it appeared people were starting to guess the news on their own. Everyone is very happy for me and I'm lucky that I'll have such a great support system at work.

Up next...we have an ultrasound appointment next week on the 18th. I've seen two ultrasounds and heard the heartbeat already, but this will be Dave's first inside look at the little one.