15 weeks-our little apple

I am 15 weeks today! I love second trimester. I am not tired anymore, in fact I have a lot of energy and the nauseousness is completely gone! Above is a picture from last week-14 weeks along. I have only gained 2 pounds so far so there is a little bump. Below is what babycenter.com says about our little "apple":

Your growing baby now measures about 4 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces (about the size of an apple). He's busy moving amniotic fluid through his nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in his lungs begin to develop. His legs are growing longer than his arms now, and he can move all of her joints and limbs. Although his eyelids are still fused shut, he can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, for instance, he's likely to move away from the beam. There's not much for your baby to taste at this point, but he is forming taste buds.

15 months old

So James Peyton, what are you up to at 15 months old???

You are 32 1/2 inches tall

You weigh 25 lbs

You wear a size 4 diaper

You wear a size 6 shoe

You have 6 teeth-two front bottom, four front top

You have so much hair and you look like such a little boy. You have had four haircuts!

You now only take one nap during the day from around noon to 1:30 or 2:00

You are still a wonderful eater and the only thing I have found that you do not like is bananas. I think it is a texture thing, but you love all other fruit.

You love to climb furniture and run everywhere

You LOVE being outside, even if it is 100 degrees

You love playing on the playground at the park. You are such a big boy! It is amazing the difference that two months make.

You have had so much fun swimming this summer but Mommy is ready for cooler weather!

You have your last day of MDO at Wilshire next week and we are so sad to leave but are excited about new adventures ahead!

You are going on a vacation next month to Red River, N.M. with Mommy, Ellie, Grandma-ma, Papa, & Great-Grandmom. We will miss Daddy very much, he has to stay in Dallas for work.

We love you so much and cannot wait to see what next month brings!

Love,
Mommy

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Ellie turned 8 on July 18th! I cannot believe this baby girl was 10 1/2 months old when Sean and I started dating. Time goes by so fast. I made cupcakes for her 1st birthday and have a picture of her in front of her cupcake on her 1st birthday similar to the picture above. It is not on my computer but I do have it in an album somewhere. I will find it, scan it in, and add it to this post. She was the cutest baby and Sean always jokes that I fell in love with her before I did him! (which of course is not true but she was a precious baby!)

It's a BOY!!!!!

We found out today that we are having another BOY!!!! We had two doctors tell us they are 85-90% sure it is a boy. We will have confirmation at our 18 week ultrasound but from what I remember from when we found out with James, it looks the same! We are very excited and so happy that everything looked great on the ultrasound and all of the measurements fell into the "normal" range. We met with Dr. McGhee's (the genetic specialist we saw last year) partner, Dr. Yost, and she pointed out all of the major organs, arms, legs, and said everything looks perfect. However she asked me if I was sure of my due date and if I had an early ultrasound at 6-8 weeks because our baby boy measured 15 weeks 2 days and I will only be 14 weeks tomorrow. I assured her that I was absolutely sure that the due date is accurate and we did have an early ultrasound at 8 weeks. I told her that we have big, tall, babies! Dr. McGhee asked the same thing last year with James because he measured over a week bigger than I really was and Dr. McGhee thought my due date should be earlier. But, James' due date was correct and he is just a tall boy!

For the Nuchal Translucency test, Dr. Yost measured the space between the vertebra on our baby boy's neck and it measured 2.1 mm. She said anything below 2.5 is normal. She also pointed out that our baby has a nasal bone and cavity and 70% of babies with down sydrome do NOT have this. Unfortunatley the nurse was not able to take my blood for the blood test which completes the genetic screening because from crown to rump, the baby cannot be over 8.5 cm long and our little one is already 9.5 cm. She did say that Dr. Matthews, my regular doctor, can do a second trimester genetic screening if we would like but as far as she can see, everything looks great and the NT measurement is in the normal range.

The ultrasound picture above is our baby boy's profile! Our next appointment is on August 17th and that will be our last ultrasound for a while!

Doctor's Appointment

We had a doctor's appointment this morning. Our doctor, Dr. Matthews, is getting certified to perform Nuchal Translucency scans so he wanted to do an ultrasound and try to measure the space between the vertebra of our little one. The good news is we had the ultrasound and got to see our little boy/girl moving around ALOT! We actually heard the heartbeat first (153 bpm) with the doppler then on the ultrasound saw the heart, brain, spine, legs, arms, and Dr. Matthews said everything looks good. But our baby boy/girl was moving around so much Dr. Matthews could not get a good angle to measure the space between the vertebra correctly. So, we have an appointment tomorrow morning with Dr. McGhee, a specialist who did our NT ultrasound and test with James. Hopefully he will be able to get a good measurement and possibly see if we are having a boy or girl. We think we saw a little something poking out on the ultraound today but are hoping Dr. McGhee will be able to confirm tomorrow! We were lucky Dr. McGhee's office was able to squeeze us in. To be accurate, this test has to be done between 11-14 weeks and I will be 14 weeks on Thursday! I will update tomorrow after our appointment.

13 weeks

Our little one is the size of a medium shrimp this week, measuring about 3 inches long and weighing in at a hefty one ounce! This is the end of my first trimester and I already have more energy than I have had in weeks. Although, I somehow cannot keep up with laundry for five people. I am trying to do a couple of loads a day so I won't have 14 loads to do at the end of the week!

James went to two birthday parties last weekend, has had one playdate this week, and went to MDO Tuesday and today. He has a busy calendar for a one year old! Simon & Ellie have been going to Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Church downtown this week. There is a bus that picks the kids up and drops them off at the Central Market parking lot, right down the street from our house, so that has been so convenient! The kids love going to VBS and have had fun riding the bus. But, yesterday a little boy put is arm around Ellie on the bus and asked her to be his girlfriend! I asked her what she said and she said she told him no, she just wanted to be friends. She did tell me he is really cute but she didn't "love" him. She is breaking hearts already! We will be celebrating Ellie's 8th birthday this weekend so I will post pictures next week.

Here we go again!

If you are surprised, so were we! We feel incredibly blessed and are so excited about our baby boy or girl that is due on January 20, 2011. So that means James and his baby brother or sister will be almost 21 months apart. I am 12 weeks today and besides having to take a few afternoon naps and the occasional nauseousness, I feel great. This sonogram picture is from our first appointment on June 10th. We saw our little gummy bear moving around and his/her heartbeat. Our second appointment was on June 29th and we heard the heartbeat (168-170 bmp) for the very first time, which was so amazing!

Our next appointment is on Tuesday July 20th for the Nuchal Translucency test (The Nuchal Translucency Test, performed between 11 and 14 weeks of pregnancy, uses ultrasound to measure the clear space in the folds of tissue behind a developing baby's neck. (Babies with Down Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities tend to accumulate fluid there, making the space appear larger.) This measurement, taken together with the mother's age and the baby's gestational age, can be used to calculate the odds that the baby has DS. Nuchal translucency testing is usually performed along with a maternal blood test.) Dr. Matthews, my regular OBGYN, is getting certified to perform the Nuchal Translucency test so he asked if he could use my ultrasound pictures as one of his test cases and the ultrasound and test would be done for free. I said of course since we were going to have the test done anyway. The test is elective and not covered by our insurance so it was a nice surprise! We are hoping Dr. Matthews will be able to tell us if James is going to have a baby brother or sister since we found out around 13 weeks at the NT ultrasound the first time around!

Our baby boy or girl is the size of a lime this week. Below is what babycenter.com says about how he/she is developing:

The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder. Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

I love going back and looking at the weekly posts from when I was pregnant with James so I will be updating the blog weekly again. Thank you so much to our family and friends for your love and support!

Love,

Tiffany

Happy Birthday ST!

Happy Birthday to my big brother! He is the best big brother and one of the nicest, funniest people I know. Anyone that knows him always says what a great guy he is! I miss him so much and wished they lived closer.

2007-Red River and my favorite picture of him

2006-Kingwood

2008-Beaver Creek

Ellie & James

Even though James' shirt is a mess, I love this picture of him and his big sister!

Happy 4th!

Family dinner

Simon and Ellie are with us for the summer and we went out to dinner on Tuesday night. I had my camera with me so we took a few pictures!

Daddy & Simon
Daddy & James

Ellie

Tiffany & Ellie

Mommy & James (who was not interested in having his picture taken)