I had to go back for a follow-up ultra sound a few days ago because at the 20 week ultrasound they were unable to get good image of her heart.  This time, there was no problem as they were able to get the images right away.  The tech was able to spend some extra time with me and sent me home with some great shots.

Face

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Leg & Foot

This is what keeps me up at night…the kicking!

Foot

The picture is a little fuzzy but the ultrasound tech showed me more images on the screen and clearly pointed out the female parts!  Now I don’t have to go and sell all my clothes at Once Upon a Child and we can finally talk about names and we can start decorating.  Can you tell I am excited?

Lily was with us during the Ultrasound and afterwards she called Nona and her Aunties to tell them the news.  She was rather excited as well, until the new baby starts playing with her My Little Ponies and Barbies!

Warning…it’s a long post.  =)

We have been blessed with becoming pregnant again, this will be our second child.  For a very long time I thought that Lily was going to be an only child like me.  There certainly are some perks to being the only kid in the house, but I think that there are more pitfalls.  I never had that ‘constant playmate’ around to bug or hang out with.  As a child I ended up playing alone in my room many afternoons wishing for a baby brother or sister.

Now, as an adult I have always wanted a large family but we had problems getting pregnant the first time as it took 4 years to get pregnant with Lily.  The culprit I suspect was my then undiscovered Graves disease which causes my Hyperthyroidism which causes infertility.  About a year after the birth of Lily my condition was discovered and I am now being treated with a daily medication.  Even though I wanted a large family it was becoming a distant reality as I started to waiver on if I wanted more than Lily.  You see, Lily was quite a handful as a baby,  as a toddler and now as a preschooler we have learned how to deal with all of her little issues.  She is what some would call a High Spirited child.  She just needs ‘more’ from us in certain situations where most kids would be able to deal.   Lily put quite a strain on our marriage, while it was never in jeopardy it sure did test it many times.  I recall many times saying to Louis, “This is it, no more kids” when dealing with Lily issues.

Being a parent is not easy, it is not all tied up in a pretty little box with a bow on top.  Do you remember how ‘blissful’ you thought this was all going to be?  How you thought you could still ‘do it all’ and keep your nice life the same and have a baby?  Then you took your baby home and that first week was like an asteroid had crashed into your life and turned it all upside down.  Parenting is messy, complicated, challenging, and will make you do things you never thought you would ever do or say.  It adds a whole new dynamic to you as a person.  If you need to drink a glass of wine, beer, mixed cocktail or even be medicated by a doctor just to cope then there is nothing wrong with that.

This all brings me back to my original reason for making this post today, we are pregnant again and will be expecting our new baby in January 2010.  The due date keeps changing and I’ve heard Jan 4th, Jan 14th and Jan 23rd, it all just depends upon when I have an ultrasound done and how the baby measures on that day.

Lily really wants a baby sister, but has recently said that she would be ‘ok’ if it was a boy.  I think she said that when she realized that boys don’t play with baby dolls and My Little Pony so she wouldn’t need to share those with the new baby.  I really want a girl, mainly because we have a lot of girl crap already and this means we don’t need to buy a darn thing or get any boy hand me downs.  I’d rather just unpack all of Lily’s baby clothes instead of inherit more crap.  Louis said that he wants a girl as well, I think he likes being the king of the castle.   But of course when it all comes down to it, we just want a healthy baby no mater if it is a boy or a girl.

Here are the most recent photos of the baby, taken today.  In these ultrasounds the technician said the baby measured about 12 – 13 weeks.  We were very surprised because we thought that I was only 11 weeks and so we expected to see only a semi-human looking baby.  We got a surprise when the technician put that wand to my tummy and saw a mostly fully developed human looking kid in there.  The baby was dancing around and waving his/her arms, it was awesome.

Here is a picture of the Baby Waving

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