Read Drink & Be Merry

Since the begining of this pregnancy the doc has given us a due date of late January, the 28th to be specific. The last few ultrasounds gave us indications that Baby E may be a rather large kid. Not a big surprise as Finn came in at 10-6. The biggest difference would be that while Finn had a rather large head Baby E seems to have very long legs. Good thing the school he’s going to go to has a decent basketball program…

Anyway, the bottom line is the doctor has moved the target date up by a week with the caveat that if he starts to drop we are to make our way immediately to the hospital. I suppose we should probably put the crib together….

M went in for her monthly check-up and the joy that is testing for gestational diabetes. Nothing like not being able to eat and then drink the equivalent of soda syrup followed by the repeated drawing of blood. At least the tests have gotten better. The first time I was checked for diabetes, in the 80’s, it required urine and blood samples every hour for eight hours. By the end I looked a bit like a junkie.

Anyway, while she was going through all this her doc, who had noticed her name on the list this morning, hijacked her for another go with the ultrasound. This time he was able to identify a few features and make the call. So, with that we are able to upgrade Zygote to Baby E.

Oh, you want to know the gender?…. It’s a boy!

In for the 24 week check-up on Zygote.

M has put on a whopping 4 pounds so far. She has, however, expanded to about the same size as when Finn was born. Since he was 10 1/2 pounds we’re kind of expecting another oversized offspring. If, on the other hand, the baby comes out at a more reasonable size we still have all of Finn’s unused newborn clothes that we were unable to use last time around.

Everything else seems to be fine. Doc Reinhart, possibly one of the most genuinely happy people I’ve ever met, spent most of the session faux yelling ‘What Are You?’ at the ultrasound screen – seems he has delivered thousands of babies and has only had a couple of cases where he can’t determine the sex. The baby was positioned, as before, with legs crossed and feet tucked up into the crotch. Not exactly the best position for shaking the package.

M has a theory. With Finn we had selected a boys name but were undecided about a girls. Being just like the little helpful kid he has become he decided to ‘present’ so as to end the discussion. This time around we have selected both boy and girl names so the baby has decided that there is no reason to share. Not sure about that but it’s all we got for a theory at this point.

As M hit 20 weeks we went for an ultrasound and to see if we need to buy new clothes or if Finn’s can be recycled. One nice thing about our doc, the same one who delivered Finn, is that he is a very hands on doctor. No pushing the ultrasounds or other things off on techs, he does it all himself. I think that actually saves the patients time as you don’t have to wait for one person to come do the test, then wait for the doctor to come and interpret it. Plus, it’s just nice to have such an involved doctor.

Anyway, everything seems to be fine. Normal noggin, fluttering hands, straight spine, beating heart, tummy, and legs…. Oh, the legs. While everything else is normal it looks a bit like we have a long legged baby (as opposed to Finn who had a freakishly large head – it’s still large but only becomes apparent when your trying to put a shirt that it supposed to fit onto him). Not sure if that means we’ll have a tall kid or just a really good hurdler…

The legs also caused a bit on another problem. While Baby Zygote was laid out in a breach position, which allowed a really good look at the whole body, Zygote was sitting, as our doc put it, ‘Indian Style’ with knees locked together. Not a very good position for ’shaking the package’. Our doc tried jiggling the belly and various other methods to get Zygote to move but to no avail. Guess we’ll have to wait another month to figure out what’s wrapped up inside.