The weekend marks my half-week point each week, and because the weeks generally go by quickly and it's always weekend before I can believe it (and that's over in a blink as well!), I'm starting to be really astounded every time it's Saturday (like today) and I realise that I'm already halfway through another pregnancy week, even though I only just turned that many weeks pregnant the last time I looked up!
I am feeling the baby move and make tiny wiggles much more frequently now, probably enough times per day that I am not really counting. Not like a dozen or anything, but several times at least, each day. I LOVE this stage! :) On rare occasions I am starting to feel a proper kick, but it's still such a very tiny feeling, even though I can tell it's done with real gusto, bless Krispie's tiny heart! :) The "big" kicks feel like a firm but extremely brief poke with the tip of my little finger - makes my heart just melllllt away! :)
The boys (especially Arthur) have been absolutely longing to hear the baby's heartbeat with the doppler, so this past week I got it out and let them listen. I lay on the living room rug for ease of access - they all wanted to sit around me. Elijah wouldn't stop clambering over my chest and patting my tummy as I was trying to find the heartbeat with the doppler, so Neil had to pick him up in the end, lol! The others all sat expectant and excited. They all gasped when they heard MY pulse as I picked up the placenta, thinking it was the baby's, but I explained what it was, and when we heard the much faster little galloping heartrate of our tiny baby, they were so excited! Arthur probably could have listened all evening if I had let him! He was very disappointed when I put it away after maybe 4 or 5 minutes, and has asked every evening since then if we could listen before bed. I don't want to use the doppler all the time (what a change from the days when I was listening in to Arthur's heart beating on a daily basis for weeks, hehe!) so I haven't obliged him yet, but I told him maybe once or twice a week - he made suitably horrified noises and isn't exactly happy about that, which I LOVE because of how much he enjoys me being pregnant and there being a new little baby on the way! :)
When we listened with the doppler, the baby was very active. The heartbeat was constantly disappearing and I would move the doppler an inch across and find it again, only to have a big SPLATCH-BOOMPFH sound and then have to find it all over again! ;) All the boys loved hearing the splatches and static "doof" sounds of the baby kicking about, and laughed every time, making comments about it being a very busy baby, or a cheeky baby, trying to hide from us already! ;)
I am starting to feel better! Over the past week I have still felt really sick most of the day, much worse when nearing mealtimes, and in the evening, but definitely nothing like the earlier weeks, and I am managing the days much more normally again now, not held back by nausea at all any more really. I do have to make sure I eat when I feel my nausea worsening, and - though it makes me feel guilty EVERY TIME, I have to make sure that I make my lunch and eat it first, before serving the boys theirs. Otherwise I never make it through the lunch-making process for the boys before feeling too dreadful to finish and serve, and then make my own. I also have still had to nibble throughout the day to try to keep the nausea from worsening.
BUT, the day before yesterday I realised I had had patches in the day where I didn't remember feeling nauseous as such at all, or maybe just mildly queasy. Otherwise it was pretty much the same. I only realised it in hindsight, the following day, when I realised I had not felt sick much outside of mealtimes, AND I didn't need to eat a thing during the evening! I didn't eat for 5+ hours after eating dinner with Neil and the boys much earlier, and did NOT feel sick!!!! That really gave me hope! :)
Today, I was ready to be more aware as the day went on. I woke without nausea, kept down a big glass of water to take my GERD meds, without nausea (drinking water is a BIG difficulty for me, even sips, when morning sick), ate breakfast, and then did not feel sick at all until just before lunch time!!!! So exciting!! I have felt sick pretty much most of the day since then, but milder - just queasiness really. I have felt pretty yucky at times and had to snack to keep it from getting worse, but I would still say even then that it's milder. I REALLY hope that it means mayyyybe the morning sickness might be on the way out! I am cautious about that because I remember last pregnancy I had two periods of about a week during my morning sickness (10-11 weeks, and 19-20 weeks, I think) where I had NO morning sickness, and was sure that must be it, but then it came back again both times. So we'll see! But I'll take milder morning sickness for sure - yay!
Today Neil and I talked about baby names. I feel so much more strongly all the time that this baby IS a girl, but I have a hard time believing that even so because - strong hunch or not - I have NEVER produced one, haha! I'm sure I've had girl hunches before with some of my earlier pregnancies and obviously those hunches were not correct! ;) So I hesitate to go there.... I don't want to set myself up for disappointment if it's a boy, because then I will be crushingly disappointed beyond comfort AT MYSELF, just annoyed and frustrated that I let myself go there, you know? I will be over the moon and completely in awe at God's blessings to me if I am having a SEVENTH son in a row, and that's the honest truth. So I don't want to mess that up with some unnecessary anticipation thing. So, I don't want to think about girl names. Neil was commenting on my shape (I am starting to show, wheeee!!!) and saying that it seems different this time - more up and down rather than round like a ball (very girly - that has been my own observation with friends who have carried girls and not found out the gender until birth, and I've theorised based on the "vertical watermelon" shape, or high bump, and mostly been right). Anyway, he commented about it seeming like a girl, and I agreed, and then told him I didn't want to set any more anticipation up than necessary, and I wanted to NOT think of girl names before the scan, but I did want to have a boy's name ready that I REALLY like, so that I can be full of joy to name him right away when (if?) we see the ever-present boy bits! ;) Then I have something wonderful to DO straight away, as a result of seeing those bits, you know? I can get straight into the joy of having another boy, and I WANT that so much.
So Neil asked me if there was a name I liked, and I told him the only name I have in my head for a boy is Toby, even though we've used it in a sense, for Elijah's twin lost very early on. I named that baby Toby David, because I love the name Toby, and it means "God is good", and David means "beloved". It seemed perfect. But I still love the name, and it feels like if we have another son then Toby is the perfect name, still, for the next boy. I love the way Toby sounds when I say all the boys' names in a row together. It goes well with our surname, the meaning is wonderful, and... I just love it. I would love to be able to physically SAY the name a hundred times a day to a little one, and hear his brothers say it too. I didn't want it just tucked away in my memory album, never mentioned, as it has been. Toby David is still Toby David, but it feels okay, somehow, to use Toby again for a living child.
Neil likes the name and asked me if I had thought of any middle names. I have! :) I wanted a 'J' name for some reason, and liked the meanings of the following: "Joseph" (may He add - as in, more children), "Judah" (praise), "Jonathan" (gift of God), and "Josiah" (the Lord saves). We discussed those for a while, and liked the two-syllable names for their "ring" better, and we chose Joseph. So, if we get to our scan on June 7th and find out that our baby IS a boy, he will immediately bear the name Toby Joseph (Neil secretly loves the idea of calling him TJ, but hmmm, that's not my thing, so it can be his special daddy-son thing, I guess, lol!). I love that the name means that God is good, and may He add more children to our family! Love that sooooooo much, and I know I will be joyful and excited to name him at the scan and be ready to tell people (well, the people we'll tell before the birth, not the general public or Facebook!) when we get home. I'm so grateful to Neil for being so understanding and so easy-going about the name I've chosen, just happy for it to be our baby's name if it's a boy. He knows it means a great deal to me, and I'm just so grateful! We will not be choosing a girl's name, because it will help me not get overly focused on the baby being a girl, or falling in love with a girl's name that we might never get to use, etc. And also we've got plenty of time to think about that once we know for sure, if it's even possible that I really and truly COULD be carrying a girl baby!!! :-O We did discuss middle names though, because we always planned to do like the boys' names, and use our mothers' names - one at a time, of course. I am not crazy about two middle names. I much prefer just one per child, but if we really do have a daughter, she could very likely be our only one, and we would not want to use one mother's name and never use the other one. My mum's name is Jane, and Neil's mum's name is Averil. Jane Averil would work fine for two middle names, but I really don't want two middle names! :S We originally planned for our first daughter to have Jane as her middle name, and the second daughter to have Averil. But hmmm... Anyway, we haven't really made much progress on that, but we've discussed it a bit anyway. If we have a girl, her middle name will definitely be one (or both!) of those names.
Okay it's suddenly really late and I must go to bed. I am a bit queasy. Oh! I forgot, I think my milk is drying up a bit. Earlier than the last time or two? I can't remember. It's still there, Elijah still sometimes has milk running down his chin when he pulls away suddenly, but I am still breastfeeding Samuel, and Benjamin (for very brief (seconds, sometimes) sessions, and usually just at bedtime and once in the day somewhere when he sees a younger brother nursing), who can tell me things like, "I didn't get any!" sadly, or "There's none left!" even after a few minutes. So I'm pretty sure that's a sign it's going. Also, Samuel and Elijah seem thirsty a lot more, and especially right after nursing, which would indicate that it's saltier than usual (weaning milk, a natural result of diminished supply when breast milk dries up). Elijah is such a petite little manny for his age, that I worry that he's not getting enough nourishment with my milk drying up. It was definitely his main source of nutrition, even though he's eating well now. He turned 11 months old today (!!!!!!!!!!!) and has a month to go before he starts drinking cows' milk (when I will rest much easier!). Right now I'm working cooked milk into his diet as much as possible. Thankfully he loves homemade macaroni cheese, porridge, rice pudding, etc, so it's not too hard. He seems hungry whenever offered food, so I'm just really increasing the offerings right now, and he's happy with that! He is drinking a LOT of water now as well, through a beaker with a lid (he has never had a bottle) independently, so that's reassuring too. He has started having a night drink by the bed at night for the first time this week, in case he is thirsty at night and my milk doesn't satisfy his thirst for whatever reason. I nurse him on demand day and night, and this has always included MANY times each night (minimum 3, ever) like all my other babies at this age, and when I'm pregnant and my milk supply is diminishing, it always does seem to flow more strongly at night, so I'm glad to keep nursing him multiple times at night while he's under a year old, and a bit beyond too really.
There's probably other stuff to write, but I MUST go to bed! Glad to get in an update though! Ooh, and I posted two entries right before this one - long overdue. One is my ultrasound gallery, with the pics from 8 weeks and 12 weeks (and will add the next scan too), and the other is my belly gallery (at last!!) with the only two belly pics I've taken so far, at 7 weeks and 12.5 weeks. Must try to keep up with them better this time around! I was pretty bad at it the last two pregnancies. :( Anyway, yay! Those pages are up for your viewing pleasure, lol!
Hopefully back soon! :)
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Ultrasound Gallery for Baby #7!
Here's the page where I'll record all the ultrasound pictures for my 7th precious baby! :)
The first scan was at 8 weeks, to check for a reason for some light bleeding. Here's my first glimpse of my sweetie!...
See the little leg extended in the second photo! I love every tiny stumpy detail. Completely in love x7! :)
Next came the first routine scan at 12 weeks (and one day):
The baby was very relaxed! One little hand up in front of the face/nose area - you can see the fingers in the pictures. The other arms was stretched casually up over the baby's head, which you can't really see in the pictures because of the cross-sectioning, but it was so sweet to see! If we're guessing on gender, based on the nub theory (or "angle of the dangle"), the very obvious nub in the pictures looks girly, but it's on the early side to be sure, so we will have to wait and see at the 21 week scan! We will be happy either way! :)
The first scan was at 8 weeks, to check for a reason for some light bleeding. Here's my first glimpse of my sweetie!...
See the little leg extended in the second photo! I love every tiny stumpy detail. Completely in love x7! :)
Next came the first routine scan at 12 weeks (and one day):
The baby was very relaxed! One little hand up in front of the face/nose area - you can see the fingers in the pictures. The other arms was stretched casually up over the baby's head, which you can't really see in the pictures because of the cross-sectioning, but it was so sweet to see! If we're guessing on gender, based on the nub theory (or "angle of the dangle"), the very obvious nub in the pictures looks girly, but it's on the early side to be sure, so we will have to wait and see at the 21 week scan! We will be happy either way! :)
Belly Gallery for Baby #7!
Here is my belly gallery for my 7th baby! :) I am totally missing the mark on my usual timings for belly pictures so far (14 weeks) but never mind! Here's the first one, taken at 7 weeks instead of the usual 5 weeks (the light was really poor and the camera was being weird, hence my attempt to rescue it by making it black and white!):
7 weeks pregnant
12 (and a half!) weeks pregnant
20 weeks and 6 days pregnant (and it's a GIRL!!!)
22 weeks (an on-time belly picture at last!)
28 weeks exactly, with my little ones all around me (an imitation of the 28 week belly pic from Elijah's pregnancy!)
32 weeks pregnant - it'll do as a belly pic as I'm sideways on, lol! Family photo taken by a random stranger on our holiday week in August. :)
38 weeks and 1 day! :)
7 weeks pregnant
12 (and a half!) weeks pregnant
20 weeks and 6 days pregnant (and it's a GIRL!!!)
22 weeks (an on-time belly picture at last!)
28 weeks exactly, with my little ones all around me (an imitation of the 28 week belly pic from Elijah's pregnancy!)
32 weeks pregnant - it'll do as a belly pic as I'm sideways on, lol! Family photo taken by a random stranger on our holiday week in August. :)
38 weeks and 1 day! :)
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
12 weeks, 1 day - scan!
Soooo much to update on - I am slightly aghast (at myself) that it has been over 3 weeks!!! At this quickly-changing stage too! :( So sorry! I'm annoyed with myself too, because it means I haven't got records of how I found weeks 9, 10 and 11. I will try to remember and do a QUICK catch-up. So many milestones have been marked since I last updated.
I heard the baby's heart beating with my doppler at 9 weeks (I can't remember exact gestation - 9w3d?)!! Soooo lovely, and it never gets old to hear that sweet sweet sound for the first time all over again! :) I have only used the doppler once since, and that was a couple of evenings ago, where Neil heard it for the first time. This time, the little one was REALLY wiggly and active, and constantly moving in and out of doppler range! Lots of bumps and splatches on the audio as the baby kicked too! Wiggly little bean! :)
Over the past couple of weeks (maybe 3?) I have been having much more trouble with spots on my face than I remember in my other pregnancies. I have had some skin trouble like this in the past few pregnancies, but this time seems worse to me. I get a good few and they last a few days and then clear up, and I get a day or so free and then a few more start up at once. They're nearly always in the same places, but they're more persistant than I remember from any previous pregnancies anyway, so I'm noting it. Hormones probably!
Still feeling sick - week 9 was yucky, week 10 not so bad, and week 11 really grim again. I'm only 2 days into week 12 but feeling really bleurghy so far! I wonder how long my morning sickness will last this time? I just have to keep on top of eating, but I feel sick regardless. It's not too overwhelming though, like it was in the first couple of weeks. Not this week, at least! It does vary a little from week to week, rather unpredictably.
I hit my second trimester (yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!) yesterday!! I always start my second trimesters at 12 weeks because I use the developmental method of fetal development (and placental development, for that matter), rather than just getting the calculator out and diving 40 weeks by 3 (or the crazy ovulation method - dividing 38 weeks by 3 - that makes the first trimester over 14 weeks long!!). My little baby has all his/her organ systems in place as of 12 weeks, and is now "fine tuning" and growing! :) I am so happy to be in my second trimester - it's always nice to leave the first one behind, especially if I'm feeling sick!
I had my booking appointment with the midwife a couple of weeks ago which went really well. My blood pressure was 110/60, my urine was normal, and I had all the bloods taken, which have since come back normal.
I have been feeling the baby move from just before 10 weeks - just incredibly subtle tickly sensations under my pubic bone or just above it, so that I doubted myself at first. But during week 10 I was much more sure. I had the odd little "stroke" across or "flubble" feeling inside, in the right place. Sometimes there would be a little pressurey surge for a moment, and then it would give way again. So I knew I was feeling my baby! :) At 11 weeks, I had the first really serious baby movement. I was lying on my side breastfeeding Elijah at bedtime, and suddenly felt a quick "puh-doiiing" bounce inside. The "puh" was a sudden (very tiny and lightweight) tap to my cervix, followed within a second (very quick) by a rebound sensation on the top of my womb, about 2 inches above my pubic bone! My little teeny (5cm!) person had literally bounced off my cervix and rebounded off the other end of my womb! Boiiiing! :D I have felt lots of little teeny bumps, flicks and sweeps since then, and I'm LOVING it! I adore the stage of feeling movements, and look forward to hiccups and feeling little parts through my tummy, and so on!
I am showing a bit, though very high - maybe just pushed-up bloat?! I have taken a couple of belly pics so far (first one at 7 weeks) but haven't uploaded any yet - must get to that soon.
Today I went for my 12 week scan! I am only 12w1d, which is the earliest I have had this scan with my other pregnancies (Matthew was 12w2d) - they've otherwise been between 12w3d and 13w exactly. The baby measured 12w3d today though, same amount ahead as the last scan I had, so they've changed my due date to October 20th. I am still going with my original due date of the 22nd though, because well, I just am! It gives me 2 days longer to go into labour before they start harrassing me! ;)
Everything looked wonderful with the baby, and we declined the nuchal/combined test for Downs Syndrome as usual, because it wouldn't alter a thing for us re. the outcome of the pregnancy (ie. we would never. ever. ever. in a million years terminate a pregnancy) and we would joyfully embrace a child with Downs Syndrome anyway. So, no testing. They said that the baby measured 60mm from crown to rump (so weeny, and yet SO perfectly formed!) and all the various anatomy and other measurements were normal.
Because I'm only 12w1d, it's on the early side for the "angle of the dangle" nub theory to be accurate - the closer to 12 weeks, the less accurate, and the closer to 13 weeks, the more accurate. This is because before 12 weeks, all nubs look the same - flat and "girly", parallel to the spine. Boy nubs will start to angle upwards from the spine to varying degrees (Benjamin's was 90 degrees, lol! Samuel's was more like 30 degrees, and more subtle to be sure) somewhere between 12 and 13 weeks. Matthew, at 12w2d, had what looks to me from the picture to be quite a girly nub. It still looks parallel to the spine to me, though not quite flat.
I got dozens and dozens of "shots" of the nub this time. It was REALLY clear and easy to spot, and I saw it many times from lots of different angles during the scan, while the baby was moving, etc. It wasn't the wiggliest of babies at the scan, quite restful really, but got a bit annoyed and moved about quite a bit when they laid the bed flat and tilted my head down and my feet up (I felt yucky after a bit and asked to have it put back up again!) to get the baby in a better position. So I had a lot of chances to see the nub angle clearly. I also got 3 almost identical pictures, all of which clearly show the nub too! So clearly, that I am suddenly a bit shy of posting the pictures on Facebook yet, which is unusual of me.
If I was 3 or 4 days further along, I would ONE HUNDRED PERCENT be expecting to have a GIRL baby in October!! I honestly could not believe what I seeing at the scan. I kept seeing it flash into sight again, and in my head I was saying, "There it is again. It's flat. It's FLAT. There's no angle at ALL!" I have never seen a nub like this before on one of my own babies, but I still can't. believe that I will end up producing a baby girl. Seriously! I am totally unable to grasp that concept, so right now I am thinking, surely it's just too early and the nub is going to angle up? I double checked Nicola's latest 12 week scan pic when she was 11w6d (too early, but still only 2 days before my gestation) and her baby's nub was pretty much exactly like my baby's nub, except that she is having a boy! Soooo..... I don't dare think much more about it (which of course is like not daring to breathe any oxygen for the next couple of days) in case it's just too early. I will rejoice in another son, but I will set myself up for a hard time that is totally unnecessary if I am expecting to maybe see girly bits at the 20 week scan, if this nub is simply looking girly because of the slightly early gestation for calling this kind of thing. That said, here are the pictures - see what you think!
See? Girly nub! I have posted at in-gender about it with the pics (well, the 3rd wouldn't load) and people there are saying it looks girly but it's a bit on the early side to say for sure, like I thought. I will just somehow have to be patient and wait and see! ;) I really don't want to go telling people that it might be a girl, because I might be wrong, and having 6 boys already makes the whole world likely to be EXTREMELY sorrowful on my behalf if there was a smidge of a chance that this baby might be a girl and then it turns out not to be. And I don't want to go there, people! I seriously will be full of joy if it's a boy! Neil says the whole baby looks different to him, especially the head shape (?!), and the nub, obviously. We will probably plan a girl's name, because of the nub in this scan, but also plan for a boy as we always do. We haven't even looked at girl names in the past few pregnancies, lol!
Okay, it's really late and I MUST go to bed. I will TRY to update again soon, as I'm sure I have more to say if I wasn't so nauseated and late for bed! The weeks are whizzing by at a rather scary rate, so I'm sure I'll be 16 weeks or something the next time I blink! ;)
I heard the baby's heart beating with my doppler at 9 weeks (I can't remember exact gestation - 9w3d?)!! Soooo lovely, and it never gets old to hear that sweet sweet sound for the first time all over again! :) I have only used the doppler once since, and that was a couple of evenings ago, where Neil heard it for the first time. This time, the little one was REALLY wiggly and active, and constantly moving in and out of doppler range! Lots of bumps and splatches on the audio as the baby kicked too! Wiggly little bean! :)
Over the past couple of weeks (maybe 3?) I have been having much more trouble with spots on my face than I remember in my other pregnancies. I have had some skin trouble like this in the past few pregnancies, but this time seems worse to me. I get a good few and they last a few days and then clear up, and I get a day or so free and then a few more start up at once. They're nearly always in the same places, but they're more persistant than I remember from any previous pregnancies anyway, so I'm noting it. Hormones probably!
Still feeling sick - week 9 was yucky, week 10 not so bad, and week 11 really grim again. I'm only 2 days into week 12 but feeling really bleurghy so far! I wonder how long my morning sickness will last this time? I just have to keep on top of eating, but I feel sick regardless. It's not too overwhelming though, like it was in the first couple of weeks. Not this week, at least! It does vary a little from week to week, rather unpredictably.
I hit my second trimester (yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!) yesterday!! I always start my second trimesters at 12 weeks because I use the developmental method of fetal development (and placental development, for that matter), rather than just getting the calculator out and diving 40 weeks by 3 (or the crazy ovulation method - dividing 38 weeks by 3 - that makes the first trimester over 14 weeks long!!). My little baby has all his/her organ systems in place as of 12 weeks, and is now "fine tuning" and growing! :) I am so happy to be in my second trimester - it's always nice to leave the first one behind, especially if I'm feeling sick!
I had my booking appointment with the midwife a couple of weeks ago which went really well. My blood pressure was 110/60, my urine was normal, and I had all the bloods taken, which have since come back normal.
I have been feeling the baby move from just before 10 weeks - just incredibly subtle tickly sensations under my pubic bone or just above it, so that I doubted myself at first. But during week 10 I was much more sure. I had the odd little "stroke" across or "flubble" feeling inside, in the right place. Sometimes there would be a little pressurey surge for a moment, and then it would give way again. So I knew I was feeling my baby! :) At 11 weeks, I had the first really serious baby movement. I was lying on my side breastfeeding Elijah at bedtime, and suddenly felt a quick "puh-doiiing" bounce inside. The "puh" was a sudden (very tiny and lightweight) tap to my cervix, followed within a second (very quick) by a rebound sensation on the top of my womb, about 2 inches above my pubic bone! My little teeny (5cm!) person had literally bounced off my cervix and rebounded off the other end of my womb! Boiiiing! :D I have felt lots of little teeny bumps, flicks and sweeps since then, and I'm LOVING it! I adore the stage of feeling movements, and look forward to hiccups and feeling little parts through my tummy, and so on!
I am showing a bit, though very high - maybe just pushed-up bloat?! I have taken a couple of belly pics so far (first one at 7 weeks) but haven't uploaded any yet - must get to that soon.
Today I went for my 12 week scan! I am only 12w1d, which is the earliest I have had this scan with my other pregnancies (Matthew was 12w2d) - they've otherwise been between 12w3d and 13w exactly. The baby measured 12w3d today though, same amount ahead as the last scan I had, so they've changed my due date to October 20th. I am still going with my original due date of the 22nd though, because well, I just am! It gives me 2 days longer to go into labour before they start harrassing me! ;)
Everything looked wonderful with the baby, and we declined the nuchal/combined test for Downs Syndrome as usual, because it wouldn't alter a thing for us re. the outcome of the pregnancy (ie. we would never. ever. ever. in a million years terminate a pregnancy) and we would joyfully embrace a child with Downs Syndrome anyway. So, no testing. They said that the baby measured 60mm from crown to rump (so weeny, and yet SO perfectly formed!) and all the various anatomy and other measurements were normal.
Because I'm only 12w1d, it's on the early side for the "angle of the dangle" nub theory to be accurate - the closer to 12 weeks, the less accurate, and the closer to 13 weeks, the more accurate. This is because before 12 weeks, all nubs look the same - flat and "girly", parallel to the spine. Boy nubs will start to angle upwards from the spine to varying degrees (Benjamin's was 90 degrees, lol! Samuel's was more like 30 degrees, and more subtle to be sure) somewhere between 12 and 13 weeks. Matthew, at 12w2d, had what looks to me from the picture to be quite a girly nub. It still looks parallel to the spine to me, though not quite flat.
I got dozens and dozens of "shots" of the nub this time. It was REALLY clear and easy to spot, and I saw it many times from lots of different angles during the scan, while the baby was moving, etc. It wasn't the wiggliest of babies at the scan, quite restful really, but got a bit annoyed and moved about quite a bit when they laid the bed flat and tilted my head down and my feet up (I felt yucky after a bit and asked to have it put back up again!) to get the baby in a better position. So I had a lot of chances to see the nub angle clearly. I also got 3 almost identical pictures, all of which clearly show the nub too! So clearly, that I am suddenly a bit shy of posting the pictures on Facebook yet, which is unusual of me.
If I was 3 or 4 days further along, I would ONE HUNDRED PERCENT be expecting to have a GIRL baby in October!! I honestly could not believe what I seeing at the scan. I kept seeing it flash into sight again, and in my head I was saying, "There it is again. It's flat. It's FLAT. There's no angle at ALL!" I have never seen a nub like this before on one of my own babies, but I still can't. believe that I will end up producing a baby girl. Seriously! I am totally unable to grasp that concept, so right now I am thinking, surely it's just too early and the nub is going to angle up? I double checked Nicola's latest 12 week scan pic when she was 11w6d (too early, but still only 2 days before my gestation) and her baby's nub was pretty much exactly like my baby's nub, except that she is having a boy! Soooo..... I don't dare think much more about it (which of course is like not daring to breathe any oxygen for the next couple of days) in case it's just too early. I will rejoice in another son, but I will set myself up for a hard time that is totally unnecessary if I am expecting to maybe see girly bits at the 20 week scan, if this nub is simply looking girly because of the slightly early gestation for calling this kind of thing. That said, here are the pictures - see what you think!
See? Girly nub! I have posted at in-gender about it with the pics (well, the 3rd wouldn't load) and people there are saying it looks girly but it's a bit on the early side to say for sure, like I thought. I will just somehow have to be patient and wait and see! ;) I really don't want to go telling people that it might be a girl, because I might be wrong, and having 6 boys already makes the whole world likely to be EXTREMELY sorrowful on my behalf if there was a smidge of a chance that this baby might be a girl and then it turns out not to be. And I don't want to go there, people! I seriously will be full of joy if it's a boy! Neil says the whole baby looks different to him, especially the head shape (?!), and the nub, obviously. We will probably plan a girl's name, because of the nub in this scan, but also plan for a boy as we always do. We haven't even looked at girl names in the past few pregnancies, lol!
Okay, it's really late and I MUST go to bed. I will TRY to update again soon, as I'm sure I have more to say if I wasn't so nauseated and late for bed! The weeks are whizzing by at a rather scary rate, so I'm sure I'll be 16 weeks or something the next time I blink! ;)
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