Baby Hoss at 13 weeks

This past Tuesday it was time for another ultrasound, this time for Down Syndrome detection. I'm not sure if the amount of ultrasounds we have had in the first trimester is normal or not but it seems like we've had a lot. Not that I'm complaining. Any chance to see the gummi bear is ok with me. So as for the testing, we found out that everything is pretty much perfect. Apparently I am in the genetic percentile of 20 year olds as far as Down Syndrome and Trisomy 13. I will take any comparison of me to a 20 year old. The ultrasound tech took a long time which meant we got to see tons of shots of Baby Hoss. Hoss was moving around a lot and at one point, we are pretty sure Hoss waved to us. Also, at one point I thought I could tell the sex, but apparently that was just the umbilical cord. We did ask the tech if she could figure out what the sex was, even though it is still really early. She said that if she had to take bets, she would say that Baby Hoss is a boy but that we shouldn't take that as fact. So we will leave any real announcements of gender or names until we have confirmation at 20 weeks on January 19th.

Now I thought that I would have a 3D pic to post up here and at one point, the tech did switch over to 3D. I will not be subjecting any of you to it. Hoss looked like a cross between a monkey and an alien and something was protruding out of its chest which I have since come to learn is apparently the intestines moving from the umbilical cord to the fetus. It was disturbing enough that even the tech said "maybe I shouldn't have switched over." Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have Lady. Anyway, I have some cute pics of Hoss below, looking human and waving to everyone.

Happy Thanxmas!

I'm a little late with posting this but it has been a long week. We traveled down to Houston to visit with Ross's family for the Thanksgiving, or in Ross's family Thanxmas, holiday. We call it Thanxmas since we don't visit at Xmas time and all of Ross's mom's side of the family is together. We start out on Wednesday night with a big Xmas meal of manicotti, sausage and peppers, and this year, some italian cream cake to honor Ross's grandfather Papa Nick who was full blooded Italian. Then on Thursday, we go to Aunt Melinda's house for a southern Thanksgiving meal. It is a week filled with A LOT of food and it is a great time that we look forward to every year. Happy Thanxmas!

11 week belly shot - the pant tightening

Thank God I went and bought a Bella Band a couple of weeks ago because I definitely have started to use it. The pants are definitely tightening by the day however the according to the scale at the OB's office, weight gain has been minimal - so that's a little confusing. Pretty much all of the nausea has now lifted though I'm still battling some hardcore fatigue but I'm counting on that lifting in the next couple of weeks.

Belly size: Definitely a bit rounder - enough to make me reach for the Bella Band with a couple of my favorite skinny pants
Weight gain: +1 - surprisingly minimal considering my weekend of dip and dessert eating.
Cravings: This weekend I had the famous "dip" that my friends and I used to eat constantly in middle and high school. I now want it constantly.

Spoiled already

This weekend Ross and I went to visit the Johnson's in State College, PA and on the way we had a chance to stop in Hershey for dinner at the Foust's. We got to see all of the Hershey family and Baby Hoss was spoiled with lots of presents from Mr. and Mrs. Foust, Mrs. Stover, and Aunt Raine. So many cute outfits and toys for the baby already. Then we got to Amanda's and she had even more for Baby Hoss including adorable homemade burp cloths and bottle shaped cookies. Thanks to everyone for spoiling our baby already!

11 week Baby Hoss photo - we have a human and an official due date!

Ross and I had our first appointment with our OB, Dr. Jacqueline Worth, this past Friday when Baby Hoss was close to 11 weeks old. First of all, I think we definitely made the right choice with the obstetrics practice. Dr. Worth was wonderful and spent a lot of time with us, explaining how the process would work, what appointments we would have when, and much to our surprise, gave us another chance to see Baby Hoss. As you can see above, what was a little tiny gummi bear blob before is much more human looking now much to our relief. We also got an official due date of June 10th so I guess my original calculations were a bit off. We also met Dr. Maselli, the other doctor in the practice who will be giving us our anatomy scan around week 20 (where we will get to know Hoss's gender and finally use the real name). Check them out at www.villageobstetrics.com. They have a great website that explains their philosophy and shows exactly why we picked them.

We have an appointment for Down Syndrome testing in a couple of weeks (completely standard) and then our next appointment with Dr. Worth is January 5th at 17 weeks. It was supposed to be at 16 weeks but the holidays are getting in the way so we'll be a bit late but after that we should make each appointment at the week we are supposed to go.

Baby Hoss will not be naked

We couldn't resist buying a couple of things early for Baby Hoss (well, more like I couldn't resist). The t-shirt was part of Ross's anniversary gift -it's a Minor Threat shirt, one of Ross's favorite punk bands. We found the onesie at a Christmas market near Ross's work. We're a bit obsessed with calling Baby Hoss our bear cub so we found it appropriate.

I think I'll probably wait until we find out the gender to buy any more clothes and hopefully I won't continue to stray in the hipster baby wear direction. I don't want Baby Hoss to become some sort of bad cliche being strolled down the streets of the East Village. Also, I should probably get some pants for the kid....

Halloween 2009 or the year we began preemptively embarrassing our child

Ross and I tend to be in town every other year for Halloween. Last year we were in Argentina, and in 2006 down in Mexico, so we always have difficulty coming up with costumes since we kind of forget about it on the years we are here. It's generally a last minute decision involving whatever we can find in our closets and buy on our street. This year, however, we spent a little more time on it since we figured it may be our last year to go all out for a long time.

A bunch of our friends were dressing up as characters from a show on HBO called "Eastbound and Down" so Ross went as Ashley Scheaffer, the Will Ferrell character, and enjoyed shouting quotes all night. For myself, after mulling over a possible Zombie Farrah Fawcett costume, I decided to go as Lady Gaga. I'm always up for crazy hair and makeup and the possibility of going pantsless sealed the deal. We figure we can show Baby Hoss these photos when he/she hits the teen years and ask Hoss if his parents looked cool and possibly threaten to bring the costumes out of retirement.

One interesting note on Halloween in the City - kids do trick or treat here but it's very different. They go to bodegas and storefronts to get their candy. There are no knocks on the door in our apartment building (but considering the fact that I have only seen one child in the past 5 years of living there and I'm pretty sure they speak some sort of weird Scandinavian language, it's not surprising) and kids walk all over the streets screaming "trick or treat" at the people behind the counter where you buy your lottery tickets. While the stores are accommadating, they aren't completely enthused. I was getting a manicure around 5pm on Halloween evening and a bunch of little kids came in yelling trick or treat. All of the people getting their nails done oohed and aahed. The woman doing my nails however said "Trick or treat. Go get yourself" and pointed towards a meager looking bowl of penny candy near the nail dryers. It was a little sad. We don't plan on being in the area by the time Baby Hoss actually can understand and enjoy trick or treating so I won't have to deal with surly storeowners pushing dried out gumballs on my child and for that I'm a little grateful.