B.J or L.J.?

Brian has taken to affectionaley referring to our unborn child as "B.J. or L.J." (Brian Junior or Lizzy Junior.....actually I think I may have mentioned this in a previous post). Anyway, its time to take YOUR vote! Farrah, said she thinks its a girl based on the heartbeat. One of the speculations is that if the heartbeat is around 150 beat per minute or over, its a girl. And if its under, its a boy. The first time we heard the heart beat, it was 134 beats per minute. But at the last ultrasound, it was 160! My mom and sisters originally thought it was a boy, but my mother is absolutely convinced that it is a girl (and not because of the heart beat, just "grandmother's intuition").

I go back and forth. I used to be sure it was a boy. But after the episode in the ER, I started really wondering if it could be a girl in there. I'm just biased because we have a great boys name picked out, but no girls name. But of course, I'll be happy with either.

So anyway, please reply in the comments and tell me what you think!!

P.S.--Farrah, when you visit, you have to do the ring on a string trick for me!

Update

12weeks, 1 day.

I apologize that I have not been keeping up so well with this blog lately. This is going to sound strange but I get nauseaus whenever I get on here. Its true! I don't know why. That's why I changed the format and the colors. I thought maybe they had something to do with it. But really I think it might be that entry where I wrote about the pickles and olives and.....oh, excuse me while I run to the toilet!!!! Yep, that was it. Just knowing that nasty entry is here bothers me. I think I need to remove it. Okay, no more entries about nausea. But just so you know, I am still feeling it, now more than ever!

So, anyway, twelve weeks! Can you believe it??? I guess it doesn't sound like much but, come on! That's three months down! Only six to go! But I'll let you ladies in on a little secret so you won't jump the gun when your time comes. Twelve weeks does not mean you are out of the first trimester. That happens once you hit fourteen weeks. And I'll tell you why (have I talked about this already?). The doctors add two weeks on to your pregnancy, during which you are not even pregnant. Who knows why. I guess they just like to have a round number of 40 weeks.

Yeah, it was definitely a male doctor who came up with that stupid idea. Even my midwives say to me "There is no medical reason for adding on two extra weeks. We don't really know why they did it." I'll tell you why: to torture us. Men figured the trials of pregnancy were not enough, so they had to add on two extra weeks so they could say to us "Well, pregnancy really lasts ten months. Nine months is a misnomer."

So anyway, for some unknown and assanine reason, they add two weeks onto the beginning of your pregnancy so that you may be 14 weeks pregnant, but your baby is really only 12 weeks old (they refer to this as the "gestational age"). So by that logic you can understand why the first trimester doesn't really end until after 14 weeks. And you can thank the idiot male doctor who concocted that one up.

I should let you know that I had been working on a draft of my entry from last week's episode, where I had to leave work in the middle of the day to go to the ER. I started bleeding again. But everything turned out okay and we even got to have another ultrasound of the baby, who looks like a real baby now! Head, arms, legs. And the little tyke even moved around for us. Anyway, I think I will skip posting that entry. But at least you are all caught up now.

I just want to leave you with a few sweet words that I stole from a blog that I have been reading for almost a year. Back when I was thinking about having a baby, I stumbled across this blog of a young woman living in England. At the time she had just found out she was pregnant and I read her blog all throughout her pregnancy and afterwards. I've introduced myself to her so she knows who I am and she loves that strangers read her blog. Anyway, she just wrote this little message to her 6-month old baby boy and it reminded me of why I cannot wait to meet my own little one:

I love how you always smile every time I look at you.
I love your high-pitched squeals and giggles.
I love the faces you make when you try new foods.
I love how you smell.
I love your monkey toes.
I love your fluffy, spiky hair.
I love how you nuzzle me and rest your head on my heart when you're tired.
I love your big sparkly eyes.
I love the determined look on your face whenever you pick something up to see if it rattles.
I love when you curl your legs and feet around my arm when I rub your belly, trying to settle you during the night.
I love playing "Who's That Baby in the Mirror?" with you.
I love making up songs about you and singing them to you, and when my silly songs make you smile.
I love it when you try to catch the trickles of running water as I squeeze the sponge when I bathe you.
I love your in-depth and lengthy conversations with the living room ceiling.
I love waking up to your gurgles and babbles in the morning.
I love it when you fall asleep on me.
I love it when you blow raspberries, even when you've got a mouthful of peas.
I love your sumo wrestler legs.
I love your lobster boy grip.
I love how you make everyone smile.
I love you more than I ever thought my heart was capable.

One-quarter of the way there...

Okay, so I'm celebrating a day early. But I am so excited! This is a big milestone in Pregnancy Land and I will explain why. First of all, we have entered the Double Digits Zone. This may not seem like a very big deal, but when you are suddenly living your life measured out in weeks, 10 is a big number.

And more importantly, 10 weeks marks the point that my little peanut is no longer considered an "embryo" in scientific terms. He is now a full-grown "fetus". Well, not exactly "full-grown." But if there was a "Fetuses Only" club, he would now be one of those for whom the bouncer would pull back the red velvet rope, instead of waiting enviously in a long line while wagging his little embryonic tail and balancing his giant head.

He no longer has a tail! In fact, let me tell you a little bit about my little pumpkin and what he's up to these days in mommy's Womb-o-Fun. He is now 1.5 inches big. His ears and toes are fully formed and he has eyes, but they usually stay open. (Which means that he is watching me. Constantly. Hmmm, hope he hasn't seen anything that he'll have to talk to his shrink about....). He also has lips. But most importantly...he now has his genitals. And now that I mention it, who am I kidding? If he is a male, as I predict, and he is like any other male on this planet, he is probably way more interested in those new genital developments than he is about a single thing that I'm doing.

So happy 10 weeks my little nugget! Here's to 30 more. May they pass swiftly and gracefully (and leave me with at least some sort of an ass instead of a pancake where it use to be).