Big Bro Brady

Buying a house wasn't our biggest news this summer.  If you haven't figured it out by the title of the post and the pic of Brady at the top, we're expecting Trap baby #2!  We've wanted to add to our family for a long time now, but with our constant moving both domestically and internationally, we've had to adjust our plans.  We found out we were expecting only a week after we got home from Germany.  That means we have a little Germany baby and Brady is our Hawaiian baby.  I'm sure any future children we have won't have such special places to say that they were made.

We wanted to wait to make our announcement public (only a few close family members and friends knew from the beginning) until we hit the "safe zone" by hitting 12 weeks, not that any time is every really safe.  More importantly, we wanted to wait until we heard a heartbeat or saw the baby on ultrasound to know that they were alright.  This is something we learned when I was pregnant with Brady and they had trouble finding his heartbeat early on, and I was sent for an emergency ultrasound.  As a first time mom, that was truly terrifying, and fortunately everything was just fine.  Not everyone is so lucky.

I had heard the heartbeat of this new baby last week before I parted ways with my old doctors in Pittsburgh.  I met with the new doctors here in Michigan just yesterday and can say that I feel pretty comfortable there.  During the exam, I had a moment of sheer panic when the doctor felt my abdomen and said that I didn't feel 12 weeks, but more like 10.  That completely freaked me out because there are some women who don't know that their pregnancy has ended and the baby has stopped growing until they see a doctor and it's discovered.  I had just heard the heartbeat a week before, but was still a little nervous.

What's really great about this new practice is that they do all ultrasounds and blood work in the office, so they brought in the machine (since they normally do a first trimester ultrasound and my old doctors didn't).  The doctor was shocked to not only see the baby was doing well, but that it was measuring bigger than 12 weeks!  He took several measurements (at this point they go from crown to rump) and the baby was measuring a full week ahead.  He then measured the head size and it was only a day or two bigger than where I was supposed to be.  My guess is that this baby, like Brady, takes after Andy with a long torso and short legs.

I was supposed to go for a screening for chromosomal abnormalities in Pittsburgh next week (the appointment was set before we scheduled the move), but with the baby measuring big, they figured that I might miss the cutoff for the testing by then. Since they do everything in-house, they did it then and there!  It involves an ultrasound to measure a certain part of the neck and blood work.  The ultrasound was a lot of fun because the baby, like Brady, was crazy and wouldn't stop moving.  The ultrasound tech kept laughing because it would move just as she was trying to get the measurement.  She did get it eventually and it was within the normal range and I should have the blood work results next week.  The best part was that I walked out with about 10 different ultrasound pics!

This was the pic from the first ultrasound the doctor did.  I love how the baby is hanging out upside down. It's amazing how fast they grow at this point, from smaller than a grain of sand to the size of a peach now at 12.5 weeks!

If you look closely at this one, you can see the baby's face.  You can make out the two eyes for sure.

A nice right side up profile shot.

Despite measuring big, the doctor decided not to change my due date, which is March 9 (wonderful timing two weeks after Brady's birthday and only two days before mine . . . NOT).  We've been talking to Brady a lot about babies every since we found out he was going to be a big brother.  Now he spots babies everywhere and gets so excited!  He kisses my belly at naptime and bedtime each day and says goodnight to the baby.  He even seems to understand that the ultrasound pics are the baby.  He's insistent that the baby is going to be a "sissy," and gets very upset at talk that it might be a brother.  Of course, we'd love if he was right, but we'd love another boy as well!  We won't know for sure either way until about a week before Halloween.