Pre-Kraxaw - The Sequel

My first pregnancy was pretty well documented on this blog. (See here, here, here, here, here, & here.) Between the time commitment of caring for a 2-1/2 year old and the diminished novelty of a second pregnancy, I've somehow managed to make it to week 25 of my second pregnancy before even mentioning it!

So, yes, I'm pregnant again! Another girl, due June 14.

Like with my first pregnancy, the "morning" sickness hit me really hard in the first trimester. Unlike my first pregnancy, it has actually subsided for my second trimester. But the general discomfort of huge-ness started earlier and has been rapidly accelerating!

At almost 8 weeks, we brought Sylvia with us to our first appointment, and we all heard the heartbeat together for the first time.

At 11 weeks, we would normally have only listened to the heartbeat with a doppler, but the doctor couldn't find it that way, so we got to get a peak...

At 16 weeks, we went to the perinatologist for an amniocentesis. It's always fun visiting him! Besides the picture of him and Oprah (and some baby) on the wall of his exam room, he has the fancy 4-D ultrasound machine. She wasn't positioned well for a face-shot, but we did get some nice views of her developing heart and brain, and we got this picture of her spine, which I think is pretty cool looking...

He told us that everything looked good and that we were having another girl! Sylvia thought the whole thing was pretty cool, and she wanted her turn with the ultrasound machine.

We saw him again at 20 weeks so he could get a better look and check all of the organs, and this time we did get a peak at her little face...

At that point, they can measure all sorts of stuff and rule out a bunch of problems. The basic amnio results had come back clean. The more complicated amnio results to determine if the baby inherited my weird growth disorder hadn't come back yet, but the doctor was able to mostly rule it out based on the ultrasound. We got to hear it all in a lot more detail than we did with Sylvia because the doctor was training someone. Everything looked just about perfect. The only thing was there was still a gap in the palate that usually would have closed more by that point, suggesting a possible cleft palate. The lip and uvula were both totally intact - a cleft palate is sometimes accompanied by a cleft lip and almost always by a cleft uvula. Because of the uvula, the doctor said that there was a good chance that the gap would still close up. I think we were both too concerned with being calm and reasonable to ask questions, so we walked away with no real sense of what the chances were of an ongoing problem or the implications. When I talked about it with my regular OB, he didn't have any better idea than I did about those things. He said I should go back for a follow-up. The results of the follow-up wouldn't really make any difference because there's nothing that can be done until the baby is born, but he thought it was better for us not to be in the dark that long. So, we scheduled a follow-up and decided to mostly keep it to ourselves in the meantime. It seemed pointless to upset and worry people over something until we had more information.

We had the follow up this week (24 weeks), and it looks like the palate has closed up! Everything else looks good, too. She's a big girl, though! She's about 2 pounds, 1 oz, which is 73rd percentile, and her leg length is 92nd percentile! The doctor didn't think he'd be able to get a good view of her face because it's harder when they get bigger, but we got lucky:

I'm 25 weeks now and nearly in the 3rd trimester. I've been feeling her move since around New Year's, and now she is super active! I feel her flopping around all the time, and sometimes I can even see it. Considering how big and uncomfortable I already am, I'm nervous about the 3rd trimester. But everything is going well, and Sylvia will have a baby sister in about 3 months!