Week 22

Well, at 22 weeks, this is how the belly is looking. It is getting bigger by the week, but that is okay with us - it means the baby is growing! We have good news this week - we found out that Nick is not a carrier of Cystic Fibrosis. Since he is not, but I am, that means our children will not have CF, but they may be carriers of it like I am. The specialist told us that our pediatrician will test our children for that so they know and so they know if they marry someone who is also a carrier of it, then they will have 25% chance of having a child with CF. I never thought I would be thinking about my grandchildren while my first child is still in the womb!!! We had an appointment with the specialist last Friday which went well - Baby P is growing as he should and everything is looking normal. Today we had an appointment with our regular OB who said we don't have to see the specialist anymore if we don't want to. All they can do from here on out is monitor the growth of the baby with ultrasounds, which our regular OB can do. One less doctor appointment a month - I'm okay with that! Our OB will also keep checking my blood for those darn antibody levels, just to make sure it isn't increasing as we go. One bad piece of news we got today - we probably won't be able to fly home for the holidays! We knew we weren't going to be able to go home for Christmas, but Thanksgiving is not going to work either. Our OB said technically we would probably be fine to fly (I would be 32 weeks at Thanksgiving), but at 32 weeks I would be at higher risk to have symptoms of pre-term labor. So ... I think we've decided not to push the envelope and not try to fly for Thanksgiving. We are going to possibly try to fly up to Michigan in October when I am only 27 or 28 weeks and then just stay put after that. Oh, how I am going to miss the holidays up there!!! :( This will be a challenging year for me, but it is for a great cause, to have a healthy and safe baby.



All in all, I am feeling great. I have still been able to do 3-4 workouts a week, mostly walking and swimming, but it is gradually getting more difficult to do. I have had to decrease my speed on the treadmill in the past week or so. :) As I was walking around the schools today at work, I noticed myself huffing and puffing and thought, "Geez, how am I going to do this when I am 9 months pregnant?!!" Ahhh, we will find out when we get there... Hopefully this huffing and puffing was due to my stuffy nose I have been battling lately. I came down with a headcold this past week - thankfully, I had no fever and didn't have to worry that it was the swine flu.



Anyway, I think that is all for now. I will leave you all with the 4D image we got of Baby P when we went to the specialist last Friday. Isn't he a cutie?!! ...

Baby Belly

These pictures were taken about 1 week ago, so I am probably even bigger now! But, yes I definitely have popped and look pregnant instead of looking like I have just been eating too much pizza. :) I feel like it gets bigger every day. The baby finally kicked hard enough for Nick to feel it. It happened while we were up in Michigan this past weekend. He was excited and said, "I'll never forget it, I felt it right underneath my ring finger!" I was so glad he finally felt it.

While we were in Michigan, my mom helped me start a baby registry.... wow, I have a lot of research to do! I am planning to breast feed and I had no idea where to start with those supplies and equipment needs! And as for the rest of the items, if my mom wasn't there, I probably wouldn't have anything on the registry! I now know that I need to do some research about what we will need and what gets put onto a baby registry. Hopefully I can consult some friends who have gone through this as well. :)

With the antibody condition I have going on, we have decided that we are not going to treat it with a blood thinner at this time. Nick and I both agreed that with my levels being in the borderline category and considering the negative side effects from a blood thinner, we are going to let it ride for now and hope everything goes well. We saw the OB last Thursday - the heartbeat is good and everything seems to be going well so far. The OB wants us to see the specialist at least one more time to just be sure that the baby is developing as it should. Then, we will sort of treat this pregnancy as a normal, non-complicated pregnancy. However the OB said he does want to keep checking this antibody level in my blood throughout the pregnancy just to be sure it does not increase. At this appointment, we did get some other concerning news - through the random DNA testing they did to try and figure out what was causing my antibody issue, they found out I am a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis. What a surprise - I had no idea this was in my family. After talking to my mom, I found out that one of my Dad's cousins had CF. Anyway, we are not too worried about this. Nick is going to get tested this week to see if he is a carrier. If he is not, then we won't have to worry at all. If he is a carrier, then we have a chance of having a baby with CF. So we have a lot to pray about here, but we are confident and happy with our decisions and are continuing to think positively.

Below are gifts we recieved from Nick's nephews. The day we found out we were going to have a boy, we went to dinner with Nick's family and that is where we were given these: The first one is a picture drawn for us from Holden - it is our first family portrait of me, Nick, and our son. Holden said, "Aunt Lindsey, you are jumping up in the picture because you are so happy." :) Under that is a picture of the three friendship bracelets that Harrison made for us; one for Aunt Lindsey, one for Uncle Nick, and one for the baby boy. We told him we are going to wait to wear the bracelets until the baby is here so we can all wear them together. :) I love it; I definitely got a little teary-eyed over these!