Easter Weekend in Vermont

April 10th-12th 2009

We headed up to Vermont for Easter and had a pretty relaxing weekend. We did have to recreate last year's Easter photo for fun!

Easter 2008

~~~

Easter 2009

(please ignore the "alien antennas!")

We enjoyed an Easter dinner with the WHOLE clan, and Grandpa Bowler stopped by for a visit. We were able to get all the great-grandchildren to pose (and look at the camera ... which takes some silliness behind the scenes!) for a photo with him - very cute.

23 weeks!

April 10, 2009

Spring is springing and Sheila is growing!

It's funny, I didn't feel as though I had grown much bigger since the last photo until just two days ago.  My belly got itchy and it felt like it was stretching a bit and yesterday I woke up and felt much bigger - it always seems like it happens overnight.  Our little girl is growing fast now!

21 Weeks

March 27th

Here is the 21-week bump pic!  I feel big, but can't wait for the bigg(er) belly!!

20 Weeks, 3 Days

March 23, 2009

We had a follow-up ultrasound after the doctor found some Choroid Plexus Cysts in the babies brain - something that is not harmful to the baby, but can sometimes be markers for other abnormalities. We were pretty worried going into this, but pretty reassured since they are fairly common and normally go away on their own. Our first trimester screening had also come back negative for down syndrome and trisomy 18, which was a good sign that there shouldn't be any problems.

After meeting with the Genetic Counselor, we had our ultrasound where everything was looked at and measured once again. The doctor reviewed all of the images and when he came in, told us that the cysts were gone and everything else looks normal!!!! This was a huge relief to hear and gave us a great feeling to know that our baby is okay!

Here are a couple new images of our growing girl!

(face)

(profile)

19 weeks!

Here's the 19-week picture of the bump ... 2 weeks since the first.  Any bigger?  :)

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

March 6, 2009

We had our 18-week ultrasound today and were very excited to try to find out the gender of the baby.  Aaron was hoping for a boy, and I was hoping for a boy for Aaron.   As the ultrasound began, Aaron and I were looking up at a black and white screen of blobs that didn't make sense to us, and within 30 seconds, the nurse said she knew what it was and told us that it's a girl!!  Unfortunately, we never got to see the evidence of this on the screen, but she was pretty sure of herself, so we'll take her word for it!


After hearing this news (and apologizing to Aaron!), the nurse went through the measurements and made sure everything looked normal with the baby. We saw the heart beating and she couldn't stop looking at it and taking stills of it and assured us that this was because it was "such a beautiful heart"! She also said the spine was perfect - these are always relieving to hear. The baby stayed a bit more still this time around, and cooperated pretty well for all of the needed images and measurements. Here are a couple of the ultrasound pictures ... I think the profile makes her look like a Whoville resident, but glad to hear all seems healthy with HER!!

(you can see the left leg and the bottom of the right foot)

17 Weeks!!!

February 27, 2009

Today marks 17 weeks!  I have been meaning to take a belly bump picture for a while, but here it is, the first one.  Yes, it finally shows - one day last week, Aaron came home for lunch and said "wow, now you look puffy!" - it's like it happened overnight!


My next post should be next week - I have an ultrasound appointment on the 6th so we can find out the gender!!!