Week 14: Something from all of us...

From Mommy-to-Be: I survived my first week back at work! This week marked a bunch of other new milestones as well. Week 13 Baby Fingland begin to hear sounds through vibrations in it's skin, and week 14 it's liver and pancreas are hard at work, along with the growth of some hair! Hopefully it isn't true that if you eat a bunch of spicy food, your baby has more hair, because otherwise I might be giving birth to a gorilla! We also started taking belly photos. This past week I have definitely felt it stick out a little bit more, and feel some of my pants get a little tighter. Monday we had another Dr. appointment with our first big ultrasound.(See below for more info!) The Dr. said everything is looking good and that the nuchal measurement they tested this week seems healthy. The test (for Downs and other abnormalities) will be concluded in 4 weeks with another blood test. Monday I also told my students and will announce it in our school newsletter Thursday to all the rest of students I don't have right now. The "nothing sounds good to eat" syndrome is going away, and I am enjoying more of my variety of foods (and vegetables again) now. For Belly pics, click the link on the right at the top of the page that says "Belly and Baby Photos".

From Daddy-to-Be: Lately Katie and I have been discussing some nursery design ideas - paint colors, fabric patterns, furniture needs, what to buy new, what we can get cheap on Craigslist. Unfortunately though, the only thing we've really decided on is which room in the house the nursery is going to be! ...If only Katie could get me to sit down for a minute to look at the bedding options she's selected. We have discussed decorations and paint colors some, but nothing is finalized. We're going to try to keep things pretty gender neutral though (pretty pinks and/or baby blues would be too obvious a color choice for my wife's artistic eye, luckily we agree on this though). We can't wait to have our eager-to-work, soon-to-be first time grandma and grandpa Fingdog arrive for an extended Labor Day weekend to help us out with all this nursery stuff. Mom and Dad, don't forget to pack your paint shirts!

From Daddy-to-Be (cont'd): The other ongoing discussion we've been having has been whether or not we will find out the sex of the baby prior to delivery. My position has always been, yes, we will. Initially, Katie was on board with this approach, but lately she has been more on the fence about the decision. I've been saying all along, "You are either surprised the day of the delivery, or surprised 4 months earlier." But now that I find myself in this reflective state of blogging, I've come up with another analogy. Its like when you were a kid and you were presented with the option to open a gift on Christmas Eve (in the Fingland family, we always waited to open presents until Christmas morning). You'd make the same decision every time; you'd ALWAYS take the option to open the gift on Christmas Eve because you couldn't wait for the fun to begin. Why wait until February 26th to find out, when I have the option to find out sooner? I'm too excited to wait. I think I may have Katie back on my side of the fence, with the compromise being that we can be more likely to not find out the sex of the baby the next time around.

From Baby Fingland: Hello family and friends! This week was pretty exciting for me, seeing as though I'm getting taller; I am about 3.5 inches now. Mom and Dad got to see me on the big ultrasound screen Monday too. I put on quite a show for them and the ultrasound tech. I was wiggling around, and waving my right arm up and down (Mom thinks I'm already raising my hand to be a good student!). It was a little hard for the US tech to get her photos that she needed, so after about 15minutes I finally calmed down, crossed my feet at the ankles, and relaxed for a bit. Check out my self portraits below:
Look for more photos in the Belly and Baby Photos Link!