Chronicles of a Father-to-Be: Part II

To the day, Andrea is now 19 weeks pregnant - well into the second trimester.  After a stressful beginning, everything has been going tremendously well since last I wrote five weeks ago.  One thing that Andrea has been doing is track her progress visually through a series of pictures.  Here she is at 16 weeks.

Once Andrea gets the series posted on her picture blog, I'll provide a link for everyone.  In the meantime, you'll have to deal with my blabbering.

Last Tuesday, we went to Andrea's 18-week check-up.  The visit as a whole was delightful and encouraging since Baby and Mommy are completely healthy.  To our surprise, we found out that Baby is growing at about one or two days ahead of schedule, which means the due date is now being pushed up a few days.  Interesting fact about due dates - there are a few different ways to measure the length of a pregnancy.  So depending on whose date you go with, Baby is expected now between December 8 and December 13.

Another something we found out was that Baby is a girl!  Turns out that when you're looking at ultrasounds, determining gender pretty much boils down to the question, "Does it have male parts?"  The ultrasound technician, who claims she has never misdiagnosed a gender, said that clearly our child is missing male parts, so it must be a girl.  Here are some pictures to prove it:

Did you know that hospitals have 3D ultrasound now?

Between seeing the technician and doctor, Andrea and I had to sit in the waiting room.  While looking at their beautiful salt-water fish tank, it finally hit me.  I'm going to be a father.  Before knowing the gender, I had a tough time understanding the gravity of it all.   Internally, I had been playing this "what if" game where I could envision what the child would do, how it would grow up, and what life it was going to have, as I'm sure most first-time parents do - but there was always two different "stories" playing in my head.  But knowing knowing the gender has prompted me to stop thinking about the child as an idea, and start thinking about it as a reality.  It's hard to explain, but it's definitely one of the more pivotal moments thus far

 

Baby is looking right at you in this picture. 
You can see it's developing skull and hands really well.

As for our reaction on Baby being a girl, Andrea and I were just as excited about it either way.  Andrea actually thought she was carrying a boy the entire time, but was just as excited to find out it was a girl.  As for myself, I'm definitely not as excited as Andrea, but I think that just stems from not knowing what a girl actually does.  I mean, I know it plays with dolls, has tea parties, likes shopping and all of that stuff.  But when it comes to the daily life of a girl, I don't really know how it's different than being a boy.  That part makes me a bit nervous.  Good thing I still have another five months to figure it out.

Nice profile picture.  The nose and jawline are very well defined here.
I think this is where she was hiccuping as well.

The time between 14-19 weeks marks a number of important milestones.  The baby is measured about six inches and can perform intricate movements due to the brain, nerves and muscles being better connected.  This was apparent during the ultrasound.  Last time we saw it was just moving her legs, but now she can "swim" away so that the ultrasound technician has to play a chase game with her.  Because our baby is a girl, her ovaries (already) contain all of her 3 million egg cells, which will last the rest of her life.  (This means Andrea is also carrying half of her grandchildren from this child as well!)  Additionally, Baby can also distinguish between sweet and bitter flavors inside the amniotic fluid.