Another Baby Registry

Yesterday Josh and I created our Babies R Us registry. I added a link to it on the side of the blog, and you can search for it under my name or Josh's name. We have pretty much everything on there, but we still need to either go back or look online to add some things. Josh even picked out a few things himself :)

20 Weeks

This week we hit some great milestones in the Osterman household. First off, I have officially felt baby movement! There were a couple times in the past few weeks where I felt tickles, rumbles, etc. and wasn't sure if it was the baby or something else. On Monday I noticed that several times when I was sitting down I would get this bubbly/rippling feeling way down at the bottom of my belly. I knew this was something totally different and not a normal, everyday feeling. Later that night I put my hand down where the feeling was, and it was like a wave or ripple right underneath my skin. The baby was literally kicking or bumping against my hand. I know for some people (Kristy, I'm talking to you) this probably sounds creepy and weird, and I always thought it would feel weird too. But it totally doesn't. It is the coolest and craziest feeling ever, and I am officially obsessed with trying to feel the baby everytime he moves.

The second milestone was when we went to our official ultrasound appointment on Friday to determine the gender and check that everything was okay with the baby. I've gained about 5 pounds since my last appointment, so I'm up to 12 pounds gained total. That's right on track. My blood pressure was good too, and the baby's heartbeat clocked in about about 153 bpm. The doctor said everything looked great with the baby, and it is officially a boy! No doubt about it. I think we've pretty much got a name picked out, but it'll be a secret until he's born. Sorry to spoil the fun for you all!

Now that I've noted the milestones, it's time to move on to how I've been feeling over the past two weeks. I have noticed more moments of discomfort lately, but I'm dealing with it okay. Sleeping is really becoming a challenge. I still have to get up once or more to visit the bathroom. Then when I get back into bed my mind is running like crazy, and I can't shut it off to go back to sleep. I also toss and turn a lot in the morning before I wake up. It's getting a little annoying.

Other than sleep I constantly need to snack throughout the day to get enough calories and avoid low blood sugar. Since I'm so little I don't think my stomach has enough room to just pig out at lunch and dinner, so the snacks are what sustain me. Then at the end of the day I get really bloated (again, probably due to not having stomach room) and uncomfortable. I just am glad that I'm not still dealing with nausea anymore, because that was the worst.

So, halfway there! We'll see what the next 20 weeks or so bring my way. I'm just looking forward to holding this little baby and glad he's doing okay so far.

Baby Registry

I forgot to mention that last night I created the first of our baby registries. It is through Jillian's Drawers, which is a cloth diaper website. I know some of you are probably like, "Cloth diapers? Is she crazy?" Well, I'm not. I have been thinking about this for awhile and doing a lot of research on cloth diapers, and they are not as bad as most people think. They are better for the baby, the environment, and our budget. Anyways, Josh and I have been discussing cloth diapers even before I got pregnant. Although he is not totally convinced, Josh has agreed to let me get a few cloth diapers to try out along with disposables. If he likes them, then we might buy more and completely switch over to cloth. If not, then he can use disposables, and I will use cloth when I can. It will still save us some money in the end. I do know that we need disposables for daycare, so I have started buying some whenever I have a coupon and see a good deal just to get that out of the way. So, the registry above is for cloth diapers, and we will be creating a "traditional" registry at Babies 'R Us in a few weeks (after we confirm that it's a boy). I'll keep you posted once we have that one up and running as well.

18 Weeks

18 week belly

Baby Osterman (skeletor in this picture!) looking right at the camera.


A profile shot of the baby. You can see his(?) leg bent and I think part of his hand in the back. You can also see his spinal bones all lit up.

Almost halfway already! It seems like this is flying by, but the end is still so far away. This week Josh and I got a surprise, and we got to get a sneak peek at Baby Osterman. Josh's mom works at the Methodist Family Medical Center downtown, and they have residents and interns that are still training to become doctors. On Thursday she called me and said that the OB residents were going to be doing practice ultrasounds on Friday and asked if we were interested in helping them out! We even got paid $20 for every half hour, but I would have done it for free. I was so excited to see what the baby looked like, since our first ultrasound just looked like a jelly bean. Now it would actually look like a baby! So, the next day we went to her office and about 6 residents got to take turns using the machine on me and checking out the baby. We could see the heart beating, the spine, and several times the baby was wiggling all over the place. It even looked like it was sucking its thumb at one point! It was really cool, and we learned a lot about the ultrasound machine by listening to the attending doctor as he taught. When all the residents were done we asked if the doctor could tell if it was a boy or a girl yet. We didn't have our regular appointment until the 22nd, so we were excited to hear if we could find out early. He moved the wand around my belly and got a shot right in between the baby's legs, from the bottom up. It definitely looked like a boy! He said there was still a chance that it was the umbilical cord, but he felt pretty sure that we were looking at a boy. And from what I saw, I'm pretty sure it was too. The pictures above are the ones they printed off for us. We don't have a scanner, so sorry if they are a little blurry from my camera.

Right now my symptoms are pretty much the same. I feel like some days I do get worn out easily and need a little nap, so it will be interesting to see how I do once work starts up again. Otherwise energy levels are good and still very little nausea. My belly doesn't seem to have grown too much in the past two weeks, so sorry if my belly picture isn't too exciting. Finally, I think I am starting to feel little movements from the baby, especially after seeing it wiggling around on the ultrasound. I have felt some tickly feelings recently, and then today at the end of church I think maybe the baby was kicking or head-butting me. It's hard to describe, but it sort of felt like a bubble. We'll see if I feel that again or if it was just my breakfast moving around :)