Well, we went for our 4D ultrasound appointment today, hoping to capture some up-close and personal images of our precious baby girl. However, she was just not wanting to cooperate with us. When we first began the ultrasound, her head and face were smooshed up directly against my uterus, not allowing much fluid to rest between her and the uterine wall. Apparently in order for the 4D to work well there needs to be some amniotic fluid in there. We kept poking and prodding her, hoping to get her moving, but she was fast asleep and even when we did get her to move a bit so a pocket of fluid could make it's way near her face, her hand was always in the way.
Isn't she just the sweetest!? I could look at her all day long. She has the exact same nose that Nora and Liam have, and she has some very full lips! No hair was showing up on the ultrasound, so she'll probably be more along the bald-side like Nora was. Nora and Liam were so excited to see her. Even Liam kept looking at the picture and sweetly saying, "Schtella" in his sweet little way. (The boy doesn't know what's coming!)
So, even though we do have a few good images, here's how it breaks down:
The bad news: we didn't get many good shots of her.
The good news: when I go back in two weeks for my next visit, I get to do the scan AGAIN! At no extra charge! YEAH!
I was telling Jonathan on our way home from this appointment that I have had an INSANE number of ultrasounds with this pregnancy. With Nora, I didn't have one at all under we found out her gender at 18 weeks. Then, I had 2-3 toward the end of the pregnancy, but only because I moved to TN, got set up with a new doctor, and she was measuring quite small so they monitored her size toward the end. With Liam, I had what I would consider is a normal amount of ultrasounds: one at the beginning to determine the due date, a gender ultrasound and big anatomy scan at 20 weeks, and the maybe 1 or 2 more at the end to get a growth scan. Miss Stella, on the other hand, has been seen via ultrasound at nearly 85% of my appointments. Seriously, I can only think of two where I haven't had an ultrasound appointment in addition to my check-up. I am not complaining at all, but just love being able to see my girl as much as possible! I go back in two weeks (YES, we go every 2 weeks now!), and they will re-do my 4D scan. Then, two weeks later they will do a growth scan to see how big she is. Who knows if we'll have anymore after that, but by that point I'll be 34 weeks, just a blink away from seeing her.
After our 4D ultrasound this mornning, I had an appointment with the nurse practitioner. It was pretty quick with just your typical weigh-in, blood pressure, "how are you doing" questions, and the rest. I have just about reached the weight that I was at the end of both of my other two pregnancies, and I still have 10 weeks left, so this time around is different than the other two in that regard. At my last appointment, my fundal height measured at 28 cm, which my doctor pointed out showed that I was measuring 3 weeks further along than I was pregnant. Today, I also measured 28 cm. So, my growth has slowed down a good bit in the past month, which I was thinking. I feel like I (or Stella) had a major growth spurt and I was feeling HUGE. Then over the past few weeks, I feel like things have slowed down and haven't really changed all that much, so I was expecting to be a little more back on track size-wise. My blood pressure was great at 107/80, and we did get to hear Stella's heartbeat during the ultrasound, but I didn't ask what it was (forgot).
Other than Braxton-Hicks contractions every once in a while and a really sore breast pain one day this week, things are going really well. I am definitely feeling the need to pee more, but I haven't started waking up all through the night yet with that problem.
I will blog more about this in another post in the future, but we have decided that Nora and Stella are going to share a room instead of Nora and Liam. Now that we have finalized that decision, I am really starting to get excited about getting the room ready. My nesting instincts are kicking in, but I probably won't do anything about it until after Amy and Andrew's wedding in two weeks. We have a lot going on between now and then that we are so thrilled about including dress fittings, a Bachelorette party, my parents coming in town, getting to see so many friends and family, and the list just goes on! What a fun (and busy and crazy and exhausting) season we are in! Let's just hope I remember to bring my camera to some of these events so we can actually REMEMBER them!!!
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