24 Weeks & 3D Ultrasound

24 weeks today! Only 112 days left to go.

On Saturday we went to San Francisco to have a 3D ultrasound done. They are a bit expensive, so I was nervous going in that we would pay a bunch of money and Eleanor would end up being a bad position or something like that. Despite my worries, it was a great experience. She was facing just the right way and was awake and active the entire time.

I had been feeling nervous about her gender since the tech at our last ultrasound was hesitant to declare her a girl, saying only that she "looks" like a girl, so one of the reasons I wanted to get this 3D ultrasound was for a little more certainty in that area. As we were going back to the room for the scan, the tech asked us if we knew the gender. We said, "It's a girl." He laughed and said, "Well, we'll see about that." He explained that more errors tend to be made with girls, hence his skepticism. He was not helping my anxiety! But luckily the second he turned the ultrasound on he happened to be in the right place and said, "She is 300% a girl!" Yay! No more doubt about it. We definitely have a little girl on the way. 300% Eleanor.

The entire scan went really well. The tech told us that she looks like she is going to be tall and has very long limbs, toes, and fingers. She is currently hanging out head down and he thinks that her length will prevent her from turning breech. I hope he's right! He could already make out some hair, particularly her eyebrows, which he said is unusual for a baby her age, so there is a pretty good chance she could come out with a nice head of hair.

For about 40 minutes we got to watch in amazement as Eleanor sucked on her fingers, hiccuped, opened and closed her mouth, and moved around. The tech was able to get some really good pictures of her face with her tiny developing features. We might be bias, but we think she is already pretty beautiful. Here are a few of my favorites:

Sweet little face!

Looking for a thumb to suck on, perhaps?

Her fingers made it to her mouth! And there is one of her long feet.

Pretty profile with a cute little nose.

She looks so comfortable and calm.

It is so incredible to have this preview of our baby. I already feel like I have her features memorized. It is so astonishing to look at the pictures and know that she is inside me right now, to know that those are the exact feet that are kicking me and that is the face that I will spend so many hours kissing.

Here is a slideshow with all of the images from the scan. They can be viewed individually on my flickr.


Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

We also got a DVD with video from the scan. It 20 minutes long and I don't imagine many of you will want to sit through the entire thing, but I uploaded it anyway. The highlights are around 1:40 (sucking on her fingers), 7:00 (kicking, opening and closing her mouth, opening and closing her hands), 12:50 (twisting around).

Eleanor in 3D from Callai Nagle on Vimeo.

23 Weeks

23 weeks now! Not a lot has changed since last week, with the exception of my belly button. The top part has started to stick out. I'm guessing the rest will follow quickly.

Eleanor is now about the size of a large ripe mango (over 11 inches long), which also happens to be one of my favorite foods.

I'm really grateful for how easy I've had it so far. No real aches or pains to speak of yet. I can sleep easily and comfortably. I'm still able to keep up my daily exercise (although I have to go a bit more slowly). So far so good!

Our collection of baby clothes continues to grow. I had a little online shopping spree recently and these lovely things arrived at my door this week:

I'm ready for May to get here!

22 Weeks

22 weeks today! I’m fighting a cold and its zapping up all of my energy, but otherwise I couldn’t be better.

Little Eleanor weighs 1 whole pound now, which seems like such an accomplishment considering she started out as a tiny little poppy seed sized embryo. I’m constantly amazed when I think about how she once was nothing, then was a tiny speck of something, now is a healthy fetus that kicks and pokes, and soon will be a full fledged baby.

Last weekend Andrew and I took a walk around the lake that is just a few blocks away from our apartment and took some pictures. It's a really beautiful area and I walk its paths 5-6 days a week. The lake is home to lots of pretty birds like herons, egrets, cormorants, pelicans, coots, and tons of geese. There is a small amusement park called Children's Fairyland there along with several playgrounds. You can also rent all sorts of boats, everything from paddle boats to kayaks to gondolas, and take them out for a little cruise. It will be a really fun place to take the baby. The pictures are kind of small on this blog, but they can also be viewed on my Flickr page.

21 Weeks

21 weeks along as of today. Andrew and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on New Year's Eve by staying in, ordering Chinese delivery, forcing ourselves to stay up all the way until midnight, and then laughing at our neighbor yelling "Screw you, 2010!" into the night.

On Monday our crib, mattress, and dresser arrived. Andrew got home from work around 6 and we spent a solid 5 hours putting it all together and moving it around to figure out the best arrangement. The nursery is a pretty small space, and we wanted to find a way to make it feel as spacious as possible but still be able to keep our small sofa in the room because it makes an excellent guest bed. After fussing with it for a while, I think we came up with something that works pretty well. Of course the room is so small that I couldn't really get a picture of it all, but I think from these photos you can get a pretty good idea of how it is laid out.

We are going to put a rocking chair in the corner by the window.


This is our old sofa that we will brighten up with a few colorful pillows the little white table is detachable and will probably go down to the garage. We're going to put a changing pad on top of the dresser. Supplies can be stored in the cupboard compartment, and if needed we have an unused wall shelf we can hang above it.


I love our crib. It's rather compact and reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright and Stickley Brother's arts and crafts era furniture.

It's all rather plain and bare for the moment. Taking these pictures made me realize just how much work we have yet to do to turn this empty room into a cozy, baby-friendly place. The only furniture item we still need to purchase is a rocking chair. We might also get a small bookshelf of some sort. As far as the decorating goes, I made this idea sheet utilizing the palette we are going to use.


Along with my regular clothed belly pictures I decided this week to snap a few of my bare skinned belly. Luckily no stretch marks yet, and my belly button is still an innie, although I think its days are numbered.


On a final note, I added two links to the right side of the page under the "About Me" section, one that lists the places where we are registered, and one about cloth diapering.