Stella in 3D!

I have so much to blog about! I don't even know where to start! 


I'll go ahead and post the pictures since I'm sure that's what most people really want to see:

In most of the pictures, she's sucking on her hands

I think this one is hilarious! It makes me think she's saying, "Good Grief!"

This picture didn't take as well. It's hard to get a good shot of it. This is the one that I think shows she may have hair. Derek and I both have widow's peaks, and I think you can see that she has one. 

It was so amazing to see her! She moved a little in 3D - flailing her arms around and things. It was adorable! We weren't expecting to get an ultrasound, let alone a 3D one. When I first got to my appointment, Derek and I waited, and the nurse came out and said, "Aren't you supposed to get an ultrasound this time?" I said, "No." She said, "I think you are." I said, "Well, I certainly won't turn one away!" When we got in the ultrasound room, the technician said, "We just got these new machines, so I thought I'd try it out." It was a very good appointment :) 


Here are some of the regular 2D ultrasound pictures:

Those two are of her face

That's her leg. Apparently, this is what's been morphing my belly into crazy shapes!

I always get this big lump near my belly button, on the left side. Sometimes, it turns my tummy into this crazy triangle-type shape. Apparently, those are her legs stretching out to get comfy! Her head is near my ribs on my right side, and oh my goodness, she was all up in my ribs on our way home from work! 

Overall, the glucose appointment wasn't as bad as I expected. The drink was disgusting - end of story. It was like drinking a really, super concentrated melted orange popsicle. It was so sweet that it burned my throat as it went down. Bleck. Derek wanted to smell it, and one of the receptionists saw him smelling it. She said, "Hey, no sharing!" I was like, "I know, I know!" I seriously doubt ANYONE would voluntarily drink that. Bleck! After my appointment, we drove through McDonald's (healthy, I know. It was the closest thing to the hospital), and I had a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit. It was easily one of the most delicious things I'd eaten in a while. Typically, I'd never do that, but I was desperate. I would've eaten anything savory.

They said they'd let me know how it turns out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I didn't eat anything, and the night before, I had cottage cheese to keep it as low carb as possible. And, I am so happy to announce that I have weighed in at +18lbs! I only gained 2 lbs since last time! That makes me so happy!! Oh, and Miss Stella is weighing in at 2.5lbs! Derek and I both were like, "What?!" I had been expecting to have a little baby, but now, I'm beginning to wonder if she's going to be a whopper!

Here's how I'm looking these days:

My face isn't in the picture because Derek just kept taking pictures of me, over and over. We couldn't get decent lighting for some reason, and this one seemed to be the only one that wasn't terribly blurry. My face has started to clear up so don't think I'm trying to hide it - haha. My nurse practitioner said that my torpedo-like belly is because I'm petite and I have a short torso. That's her excuse, not mine!


Overall, things are going very well. Stella moves so much anymore! She's moving right now, and they aren't little teeny movements anymore. These are big, big movements - jabs and kicks! 


And for Derek: he's back to being sick :( On the way home, his fever was back, and he's now in bed. I'm trying to convince him to stay home tomorrow, but he's being stubborn. On the way home he said the cutest thing: he's sitting there shivering from fever chills, and he said, "I had so much fun at the doctor today!" He's too cute :) 


Anyway, I can't wait until we meet our baby girl! This was so amazing, and it makes it so much more real! Oh, and they did confirm one more time that she is a baby girl :) I had been worried about that! :) 

It's a baby girl!

To accommodate our news, I've adjusted the blog to be a bit more girly! 

I'm honestly so excited and so relieved to finally know that we're expecting a little girl. I was so sick of calling the baby "it" and wondering who in the world is in there. Now, I can say, "She's laying weird," or "Derek, can you feel her moving?" It's such a relief! 

Ever since the ultrasound tech said, "It's a girl!" I've been in absolute disbelief. I was 200% convinced it was a boy. I had already been looking at boy clothes at Gap.com earlier in the day. There was no convincing me otherwise. I hate to say it, but I actually really wanted a girl and admit that it was for all the reasons anyone wants a girl. I imagine putting her pretty dresses, doing her hair, painting her nails, and having her be a little princess. 

If she's anything like I was, and God help us, she'll be a huge girly-girl. I refused to wear pants until I was five because "little girls wear dresses." I wore old furs that my grandmother Kat would buy for me at Saint Monica's in New Boston. I would have to have everything pink and girly. When I was 8, my dad had hot pink carpet installed in my bedroom just to suit me, and I was a complete prissy girl. Who knows, though? She may be a total tomboy! I'm not exactly super girly anymore! 

I've been in absolute disbelief about the whole thing. I've even double checked the ultrasound anatomy picture with others on the internet. Derek keeps saying that he didn't pay 75 dollars for me to keep wondering what we're having, and I mean, I understand his point. I even asked the ultrasound tech, "Are you sure?" She seemed a little offended. She said, "I've been doing this for thirty years." I was like, "I don't mean anything. I'm just a little shocked." I hope I didn't piss her off.

So here are the shots for all of you to see:

That's the first shot of her lady parts... 

I think that one is a little more convincing.

 I kept thinking that in the other one, it looked a lot like something else... 

Here's a picture of her face

And a few more...

This is a profile shot. 

And so is this one

I think you can really see how much she's grown in just three weeks. Her kicks are really getting strong, so I can tell she's getting very big in there. Based on typical estimates, most babies are around a pound at this point and measure about 11 inches long. A papaya is not a small fruit!

I guess her size could also play into the fact that I weighed myself this morning, and it said I'm up seven pounds since my weigh in last month. That puts me at 14 pounds total - which I wasn't very happy about. I'm going to weigh myself again in a couple days and see if it's still accurate. 7 pounds is a little too much! I didn't think I ate THAT much at Thanksgiving...

I'll have to take another belly shot soon. When I laid down on the ultrasound table/chair/recliner/thing today, my stomach made the weirdest shape. I was all lopsided, and it was clear where Miss Stella was resting. I had never really seen my belly do that before, so it was amazing to see how she can morph my stomach into crazy shapes! Last night, she leaned into my stomach wall and you could feel her sitting there. It was just crazy!

Things are going well, though. Most of my cravings have included: gravy; pizza; burgers; hot dogs. Nothing good for you. Oh, and I think I pretty much cleaned out Publix's pudding section the last time I was there. There's just something so delicious about sugar free pudding... Most of my symptoms are pretty chill right now. I'm mostly dealing with heartburn, but that's to be expected. I'm sleeping okay, other than those nights when little miss decides to do jazzercise in my stomach at 3am. 

Anyway, I need to get to grading! I'm super relieved! Now, I just can't wait to meet Stella in 18 weeks! :) 

Switching Up the Game Plan

This post must be quick since I have a ton of grading to finish tonight, but I had to take a second to update everyone on something.


Well, you remember how I said we wouldn't find out the gender of the baby... ?


The other day I was talking to Derek, and I told him how upset I've been since I haven't had any idea of what to expect. I told him I really wanted to know, and I even went to so far to call the doctor's office about finding out. I thought maybe they had it documented, and when the assistant said it was only documented that the baby's gender is "normal," I started crying out of frustration.


She said I could do a gender scan, and that would be the only way I could find out before my next ultrasound at 36 weeks. So in an act of desperation, I scheduled a gender scan for Monday at 11:30 am. 


I know, I know... I've been so worried that everyone will judge me for not having a stronger will. If you know me at all, you know I'm impulsive and capricious, and that's just the problem here. I've been shopping for gender neutral clothing, and I can't find anything that isn't covered in puke yellow ducks. I have some OSU stuff, but like I told Derek, I can't have our baby wearing pukey ducks and OSU stuff for the first 3 months of his or her life. 


So my impatience has gotten the best of me. I had really wanted for it to be a surprise, but I can't do this for another 18 weeks. It's driving me crazy, and I have to know. 


I think that since Derek and I finalized our names (around 19 weeks), I've wanted to know: are you Harry or Stella? Every time the baby moves (which is a lot anymore), I just wonder who this is moving around. Maybe I'm weak willed. Maybe I'm being a total princess about shopping. Maybe I'm just impatient. Whatever it is, I need to know. It's driving me absolutely insane, and I can't take it anymore. 


Derek is totally fine with finding out. I think because I've been crying and bitching and complaining since our 19 week ultrasound. I imagine he's sick of the drama. Regardless, I need to get to grading, but I figured this needed to be out there.


You can leave your judgments here. I know - I'm a big drama queen and I have to know what's going on. You can say whatever you want. 

Yay! Halfway There Appointment!

Today's appointment was great! I'll write more after I post the pictures since I'm sure that's what most of you want to see. Baby Ratcliff was very active, and the ultrasound was absolutely amazing! We didn't see the plumbing, but that's the way we asked for it :)


Here you can see the baby's profile:

The baby had been moving its mouth around a lot! It was so cute to watch! 

Here is the baby's nose:

If you look closely near that black blob, you'll see a teeny little nose and mouth. 

Here is a shot of the baby's fingers. It's reaching over its head and you can see the little fingers just poking out:

Here you can see the baby's foot really clearly:

and again:

Here is the baby's arm. The baby kinda waved at us during the ultrasound!

Here is another shot of the baby's face:

It was so hilarious to see the baby moving its mouth around and flinging its arms. When I feel the baby move (which is a lot any more!), I always wonder what in the world he/she could be doing. I read that when you feel movement at this stage, it's the baby flipping around. I think our baby loves hopping around in there!


As for the rest of the appointment, everything went great. I got some topical medication for my face and she said everything is good. Here's the kicker: I have actually lost a couple pounds since my last appointment! I'm up by 7 pounds! I'm very happy about that. Derek and I went and celebrated with some super fattening Mexican food afterward! 


Here's how I'm looking these days:

Plump, yes. I would say I look particularly tired today because I worked until midnight last night, so I didn't sleep much. Maybe I'll take another in a couple days when I don't look so exhausted.


As he already said in his latest blog posting, Derek doesn't look any worse for the wear:

He's all jazzed up here since he's getting ready to go play for Team Zissou. You'll notice he's got an effed up eye - that's from getting hit with a ball in the face! I keep telling him it looks like he's wearing guyliner on one eye :)


Overall, everything is good! The baby is healthy - the heart, spine, brain, major bones, kidneys - all checked out. I go back on December 13 for my next appointment! Yay! We're cruising along! 

Appointment on Monday

Well, we're almost at 19 weeks, and my next appointment is on Monday at 3. 

We'll get to do our half-way ultrasound, and we're really excited :D We haven't seen our baby since our 7 weeks appointment back in August. Back then, Baby Ratcliff was a little gummy bear-looking guy. I'm sure a lot has changed, and I can't wait to see him/her. I hope everything is okay and all the parts check out. I'm very nervous about the baby, and Derek says I'm being too worrisome. It's hard when I worry that everything I do may harm the baby or somehow negatively affect the baby's development. Just please pray for a healthy Baby Ratcliff on Monday :) 

That brings me to my next topic. In some secret way, I keep hoping that the ultrasound will start and Baby Ratcliff will be waiting on us with his/her legs wide open and there won't be any way to hide it. I know, I know... I brought this on myself, but for some reason, I keep wishing I hadn't. My lack of patience is really rearing its ugly head. 

Maybe it's because I've realized how little gender neutral baby gear there really is out there. I've been looking at baby clothes, and everywhere I've looked  - Carter's, Baby Gap, Gymboree, The Children's Place, Macy's - all pretty much have a couple gender neutral outfits. Mostly, gender neutral stuff is covered in these less than fantastic ducks, and it really pisses me off. Who says parents want to cover their babies in ducks for the first three months of their lives? I sure as hell don't.... We may opt for the Wu-Tang onesie since it's technically gender neutral! 

We've also decided to make a final decision and order bedding. We were going to go with the Carter's Forest Friends bedding I found on Diapers.com. Remember that post? Well, we're honestly very worried that it may end up being too boyish. We want something that we can easily add pink to but also easily be able to add darker shades of blue as well. I still plan to get that adorable owl wall hanging and pillow, but I think we may go for something simpler, less matchy-matchy. We found something we like on Overstock.com, and it's much cheaper than the Forest Friends set. It's all light blue and brown, and it's covered in geometric shapes. We thought that might go better with the rest of our house and the whole gender neutral thing. Any ideas?

I've also spent a good bit of time looking for other gender neutral bedding options, and there are so few - wait, so few that aren't a JUNGLE theme, bleck! - that I could scream. My friend Kerry found an awesome one on Diapers.com that she sent me and it had birds on it. The only problem is that it doesn't really go with our paint choice, and I kept worrying that a boy probably doesn't want to have a bunch of birdies all over his bed. Such a hard decision!

We're planning to do a little shopping today but mostly for holiday things. I'm going to look around and see if I find anything. We've decided upon a mattress, and I plan to order that right away. I haven't had a lot of free time lately with TAing for Ashford, the University of Phoenix hiring process, and work at SCAD. I have to go in tomorrow for our finals Midnight Breakfast. I love my job and everything, so don't think that. I just haven't had much time (even for online shopping) in the evenings when I come home and fall asleep at 8pm.

That brings me to my next topic. I've been so stinking tired lately. On Thursday night, I fell asleep at 8, tried to wake up at 8:45 to watch The Office at 9, and I ended up crying and just falling asleep. If you know me, you know I'd never fall asleep during The Office. I'm going to talk to my doctor about it since I'm concerned I may have low iron or something. As you all know (since I'm constantly reminding you), I don't really eat meat, and last week, I started craving roast beef for some reason. After I had it for lunch, I felt a bit better. We had vegetarian chili for dinner last night, and the before that, I made spinach lasagna. I guess the point is: there's my evidence for low iron. If I eat the meat, I feel better, but how do I stomach eating meat every day? We'll see. 

The heartburn has been pretty intense, too. I may ask about taking Prevacid or something like that. One of my coworkers is pregnant and she started taking that recently. I also want to ask about this pregnancy acne. It's so terrible :( I thought it would clear up, and I've been using this all natural, moisturizing soap to clean my face. Nothing I do fixes it. I've heard you can take some medication for it, so I plan to ask the doctor about that as well. I know all of this is for the baby and it's worth it, but, man, it sucks. 

Well, I suppose I should get to cleaning our house and these errands! I'll update on Monday with pictures from our ultrasound! Yay! :)