Second Trimester - Izzie B

Two down, one to go!  It's incredible that we're 2/3 of the way to meeting Miss Izzie B!  The third trimester starts at 27 weeks, so we've officially left the second trimester behind.  The second trimester is usually classified as the most comfortable of the three as you're done being sick and you're not too big yet.  I'd have to say that's pretty accurate, although I still feel pretty great.  The second trimester is also great because you have your anatomy ultrasound that tells you the gender of your baby (if you choose to do so) and at 24 weeks, your baby reaches viability (the ability to have a chance of survival outside of the womb).  Also, it's when you start to feel movement.  Baby also does a ton of growing, going from the size of my clenched fist (about 4.5 inches from crown to rump and a few ounces) to the size of a head of cauliflower (16.5 inches from head to toe and 2.5 pounds).  Of course, our baby girl will gain the most weight during the third trimester as she will likely be over 8 pounds like all the babies in our family (which includes Andy, my parents, me and my brothers, and of course, Brady).

It's very hard to believe I'm already 7 months pregnant!  The time is just flying by, which makes sense as I spend most of my days keeping up with Brady instead of sitting around dreaming of baby.  Time probably won't even appear to slow down as we approach the holidays and then immediately go into preparations for Brady's 3rd birthday.  I'm due less than three weeks after his actual birthday.

I also don't feel pregnant most days.  My belly still isn't very noticeable unless I'm wearing a form fitting shirt and it doesn't get in my way.  I have had a few moments of what they call "pregnancy brain" and even today, was searching for my scissors and Andy found them in the trash with the scraps after I clipped coupons from the newspaper.  I haven't had any problems falling asleep, and most nights I fall asleep on the couch while watching a few shows with Andy.  He often looks over and sees me fighting to keep my eyes open.  At this point, I only have to get up on average once a night to use the bathroom.

My weight gain is in check (thank goodness) and is already less than what I'd gained with Brady (even if I started up 5 pounds).  I'm up to a total of 15 pounds gained (remember the recommendation is 25-35) and with Brady I was up 19 pounds.  That means I gained 33 pounds in the last trimester with Brady and I know where most of that weight came from, so I know how to avoid that much this time.  The baby will make up about six pounds of what I gain in the third trimester, so that's of some comfort. At this point, my appointments have been every 4 weeks, but after my appointment at 28 weeks right before Christmas, they'll start to be every 2 weeks.  Once I hit 36 weeks, they'll be every week.  That means there will be less cheating between visits, then being good about a week before the weigh-in.

Izzie is a very active baby every day, so I never have to wonder if she's alright.  She's almost more active than Brady was, which is why I wouldn't have been surprised early off if she'd been a boy (although now we have proof otherwise).  I swear sometimes she is an octopus, because there's no way she can hit me in so many directions at the same time. With Brady, I could only feel him when sitting or laying down.  Izzie is so strong that she hits me when I'm standing up.  I often see my belly moving around with her very strong kicks and punches.  She's very quiet in the middle of the night, so that bodes well for when she comes home as babies establish their sleep patterns before they're born.

Once we found out that Izzie was a girl, we started buying a few things here and there.  I bought a handful of clothes (not nearly enough to cover her for the first three months even) and a few friends have sent gifts of clothes and hair bows.  We've told most family that we'd prefer baby items for Christmas as we don't really need things for ourselves.  My mom already got me my double stroller while she was here for Thanksgiving and other family members have been told we need girl clothes.  I still have to go through all of Brady's baby clothes and see what is gender neutral (I know I bought at least a few items).  We have all of the furniture already, and have the gear like car seat, baby swing, etc. from when Brady was little, so the big items are already taken care of.  I will get to do the one thing I've been dreaming of since Brady was born and that's decorate a nursery.  We moved around so much, we only ever put up a wall border in Brady's nurseries.  Once Brady moves out this Christmas, we can start painting and decorating.

16 weeks

20 weeks - Halfway there!

24 weeks 

(finally starting to get a little belly, not that I'm complaining as I don't tend to get any stretch marks until the very end, even if you can see my old faded ones with the camera flash)

The belly shot progression (from left to right) : 16 weeks, 20 weeks, 24 weeks. She definitely grew a ton between 16 and 24 weeks!

A comparison shot between Brady (left) and Izzie B (right).  Can you see the difference?

Brady loves to get in the action when I'm taking belly shots.  He sees me standing with my shirt up and he starts doing the same.  He then tells Andy that it's his turn for pictures.  This is Brady at 20 weeks.

And again at 24 weeks

Andy decided this would be a good opportunity to have Brady take "muscle" shots with his shirt off.

Brady is going to make a fantastic big brother.  Every time he goes to sleep, whether its for nap or at the end of the day, he makes sure to remind me that he has to kiss Izzie nigh-nigh.  Yesterday, he lifted my shirt, rubbed my belly, and said, "Baby is getting big."  Then he said, "Come on out baby!"  I told him, she has to get a little bigger before she can come out.  We'll see how he'll react when she finally arrives.  He's such a great helper around the house, so I'm sure he'll be the first one to jump up and grab a diaper or a bottle.

A Halloween Gender Reveal

 

If you didn't read the pumpkin next to Brady, he's getting a little sister!!!!  We are beyond excited to have one of each gender and to get to do things all over again, this time with a little girl.  Can you tell from the picture that Brady is excited?  The day before I took the pregnancy test in June, I asked him if he wanted a brother or a sissy.  He immediately said sissy and the next morning the test was positive.  People say kids are really intuitive about these things and he continued to insist it was a sissy and would get very upset if we even suggested it could be a brother.

Andy and I never had a strong feeling one way or the other what this baby would be.  They say different gender pregnancies are different, but they haven't been significantly different enough for me to think it would be a girl vs. a boy. They also say a mother's intuition is pretty spot on.  Not the case with Brady as I was convinced he was a girl.  If you go by the old wives tale of heart rate being an indicator for gender it was right for both kids, but of course we didn't take that for more than the old wives tale it was.  Also, there is a Chinese gender calendar that takes into account the mother's age and month of conception.  That was also right for both kids, but is wrong for so many other people.

A lot of people assumed boy after my last post because I said the baby was quick to show off their parts.  Girls have parts too!  Above is the shot that shows the three white lines (between her little bum cheeks) that indicate she's all girl.  We had a very clear shot earlier in the ultrasound where you could see the legs and the lines in between.  I knew what I was looking for because I had a boy first.  When I saw the baby with legs wide open and those three white lines instead of anything poking out, I knew it was a girl before the tech said it.  Andy, on the other hand, had no idea what to look for on a girl and had a hard time believing the tech.  She went back and took this picture, pointing out each of the three lines and telling Andy what each one represented.

A girl born with the Trapuzzano name (in our clan at least) is not something that happens very often.  The last time was 26 years ago, and the time before that was 58 years ago, so you can see it's really rare.  Andy and his brothers joke that it's physically impossible for them to have girls as there are three of them, their dad and their Uncle, then their Grandpa Trapuzzano was one of three boys (and they had one sister).  We are glad to prove that theory wrong.  Not sure they're going to know what to do with a girl.  Interestingly enough, both mine and Andy's moms were one of three girls and we only have girl first cousins.

A lot of people have trouble naming their children, but not us!  Believe it or not, we decided on our first boy and girl name within a month of dating, so they've been set since the summer of 2007.  Obviously, our first boy name was Brady Charles.  This little girl's name will be Isabella Betsy or Izzie B for short.  Isabella is a beautiful Italian name (we are both Italian) and Betsy was Andy's mom name.  She passed away when he was kid, so we wanted to honor her.  Of course, in 2008 the Twilight movies came out and the name Isabella skyrocketed to the number one most popular girl name and there are Bella's everywhere (including one of Brady's cousins).  We are hoping that calling her Izzie will set her apart.  As of this year, it's fallen to the number five spot and we can only hope it falls more in 2013.

Having a little girl opens up a whole new world of possibilities for us and of course, for me when it comes to shopping.  I've always dreamed of crossing the aisle in the kids store and shopping for a little girl.  And now that's a reality!  Yesterday, i just couldn't help myself and bought the outfit above.  I can't wait to see her in it.  Since we have mostly boy clothes (with a few neutral items left over from Brady), we will definitely be needing girl clothes, so anyone shopping for us for Christmas will have no problem figuring out what to get us ;)

20 Week Ultrasound - Izzie B

Yesterday was our 20 week ultrasound for baby #2.  We were so excited to find out whether we were getting another boy or our first girl.  We would of course be happy either way and just wanted to be able to refer to the baby by name.  Andy took the day off work so he could come and Brady was there as well.  Brady is so cute because he's so empathetic.  He remembered from last month that we would get called behind the door and couldn't wait.  When we were taken to the ultrasound room and he saw the reclined table, he started to say, "Uh oh! Owie!"  I reassured him that it wasn't going to hurt and we would get to see the baby on the TV.  The whole time he remained concerned and wanted to hold my hand through a good portion of it to make sure I was ok.  He knew I would get a shot later (flu shot) and when I did, he sat on my lap and watched.  I told him that I wouldn't cry and it wouldn't hurt, but when the nurse gave me the shot, both of his little fists clenched tight.  He's such a sweet boy!


 

We've had two different rounds of genetic testing done and both came back with the best results you can receive.  The ultrasound confirmed that the baby is growing perfectly and everything looks great!  The baby is very active like its brother and there are many times at night I have to switch positions because it's simply too much at one time.  Andy has been able to feel it from the outside and we weren't able to do that with Brady until much later.  The baby weighs approximately 15 ounces and is at the perfect size for almost 21 weeks.  The tech asked us as soon as we entered the room if we were interested in finding out the gender.  We knew going in that we couldn't handle the suspense of waiting until the baby was born, so we eagerly said yes.  She said she usually waits until the end to reveal the gender, but our baby is very cooperative and showed off its parts so clearly that the tech told us within the first few minutes.  We and a handful of close family know what the baby is and I will be doing a special Halloween gender reveal on Saturday so stay tuned!

A precious tiny foot!

The tech thought this was a really cool shot.  The baby had one leg fully extended.  You can see the bright white lines of both leg bones.

The really cool thing about my new doctors is that they have the capability to do 3D ultrasounds.  We weren't able to get a really clear shot because the baby kept putting its hand near its face, so this is the best one we have.  They don't have much fat on them at this point, so you can only make out a very skinny, skeleton-like face.  We paid to have one done at 29 weeks with Brady and will do so again with this baby.  Andy claims that he could perfectly picture what Brady would look like from that ultrasound, but I still couldn't.  It will be cool to compare the two and see if they'll look alike!