2/3 of the way there

This morning marks the 27th week and 1st day of my pregnancy. That means that I am officially in my 28th week. Today starts the third trimester. (yay!) The time has really been flying by since we got to Miami. There has been so much to do everyday that it is hard to believe that we've already been here almost a month!

Morgan's got about 13 more weeks of baking time before we meet her and in that period we will be traveling to New York for her uncle (and new aunt)'s wedding. Luckily my mom and I were able to find an outfit that not only resembles a Mama Cass muumuu dress not in the slightest, but will also show off Morgan to her full round (and cute) potential! Pictures to follow.

Monday we go in for the gestational diabetes test to make sure that my body is not having problems regulating its sugar levels. I will update on the results of that as they come in. (In other news, on Monday my closet will be installed and I'll actually be able to stop living out of a suitcase again. woohoo!)

House pictures are still in the works, I promise, but our renovation schedule got unforeseeably delayed and we must still get back on track.

back by popular demand

ok, I've had a good number of people requesting that I post up new belly pictures. I've been remiss, I admit, but moving and unpacking is rather time consuming. Anyway, Jim unpacked the necessary cables (teehee!) and my computer last night so the new belly pics (from 24 and 26 weeks) are now up on the belly shots page.

New house pics are still to come as this is still a work in process. I will post up some before, during and after pics. :)

We've arrived

Well, we finally made it down to Miami. We got in last Thursday evening and have been getting our new house ready for move in since then. I'm a little behind on taking belly pictures because of all the craziness.

We had our first Midwife appointment on Monday at the clinic where Hilary works. It went really well. Luckily the vampires didn't need any more blood from me since the docs in Toronto nearly drained my body on multiple occasions. My next appointment is in one month's time to test for gestational diabetes.

In the meantime, we're working away on doing some minor renovations on our new house which I absolutely love! I can't wait to be able to move in and make it our own. We're expecting our stuff to arrive from Canada in about 2 weeks, which should hopefully give us enough time to finish the painting and replacing the light fixtures and baseboards. I will post up some pictures when the renos are done.

On the road

Well, We're now almost all the way down to Miami. Tomorrow is the last leg of the journey. Jim says that means we're closer to meeting Morgan.

I've discovered some interesting facts about traveling while being PG.
1st - there are NEVER enough public bathrooms along the road... and when they do exist, wow, who wants to go in them??? lol
2nd - seatbelts, while absolutely necessary, are VERY uncomfortable.... especially when one has to stop short.
3rd - apparantly whoever designed cars was determined to see if they could cause massive ankle swelling.
4th - there is never enough water in the car, no matter how many cases you prepack, which, of course, leads to realization number 1.

Mourning my inner punk

Well, with all good things, something has to give. Today I had to remove all my possibly interfering piercings. It is a sad day. I'm mourning my inner punk. Thankfully Jim can be very gentle with pliers.

And we have a name

Jim and I have done a lot of thinking about this and have come up with a name suitable for our little girl. The world will meet Morgan Jade Cable this November. Since all of the books say that Morgan can now hear external voices, Jim has taken to reading chapters of Winnie the Pooh to her nightly. We're thinking of adding Dr. Seuss to her repertoire. We've been discussing a Seuss style for her nursery instead of Pooh since Jim thinks that Pooh is just too common. :)

I may eventually change the name of the site to Morgan's Page, but for the moment we're keeping the LittleBear since, well, I've become quite attached to it. However, Jim is determined that Morgan will recognize her name in his voice by the time of her birth, so he's preparing her already.

It's a girl!

So, the official report is in. LittleBear Cable now has a pronoun all of her own. No more of this s/he his/her stuff. Our Little Bear is a little girl!

Jim is through the roof, of course. He's already talking about having Daddy's little girl and being wrapped around her tiny finger.

We went in for our 19 week ultra sound this morning for a 9:30 appointment. At 10 am we were called in by the tech and we were ready to go. This was a Level II u/s in which they view and analyze the baby's internal organs to make sure all is as it should be. This procedure would take about 45 minutes, or so the tech told us. However, it quickly became obvious that that was not to be the case. Our LittleBear is quite the energetic little thing. She was doing cartwheels and bouncing all over the place making it hard for the tech to get good photos and images. Looks like we've got a little athlete or dancer on our hands... not all that surprising when you recall that she first made her presence known to her daddy in mid soccer game! True to her mother's nature LittleBear was being quite uncooperative with the tech and 3 hours later we were still bending me in all directions to get a good look at her heart. I'm convinced that she was just anxious to know the score of the Italy v. Czech Republic match. Forza Azzurri!

Today is a good day. Italy qualified for the round of 16 and we have a little girl!

Jim felt the baby move!

Ok, two posts in one day... far outside my norm, but this one is well worth reporting.

We were sitting on the couch watching the Sweden v. Paraguay World Cup match and I felt the baby kicking pretty hard.

Now, I've been feeling LBC move on and off for the past month, since about week 14, but never like this. It started out feeling like a little muscle twitch and then sort of felt like popcorn popping in my abdomen. That's been a regular occurrence for the past few weeks. Today, however was different. The kicks were much stronger. So I put Jim's hand on my belly while we were watching the game and I felt the strongest kick I've felt yet. He felt it too... his head whipped around from watching the game to staring at my belly! Of course, he says he needs to feel it again for it to be proof that it actually happened, but we both know the truth. :)

I'm officially in maternity clothes

Well today makes it official. I can't fake it anymore. I've been wearing my regular clothes with the top buttons undone for about 2 weeks now but today I had to break down and buy two pairs of maternity shorts. ahhhhh.... So much more comfortable. I'll post pics of the definitely protruding belly bump on Saturday when I officially turn 18 weeks.

The BIG ultrasound is next Thursday (22 July) for all those wondering if it will be a girl or a boy.

For all you music lovers out there...

Well, it's music to my ears at any rate. We rented a fetal doppler for the month that has the ability to record. So, we did just that this morning. LBC's heart beat is now available for sound check on the Milestones page. Sorry if the reception isn't quite the clearest, but we're still playing with the new toy.
Jim ran the .wav file through a program which determined that LBC's heartrate is 139.359, which we can probably safely call 140 bpm.

12 weeks, 0 days

So, reports vary depending on what website I read, but the general consensus seems to be that 12 weeks, 0 days marks the beginning of the second trimester. The logic is that I've gone through 12 weeks of pregnancy by this point, week one starting at 0 weeks, 1 day. Of course, since the average pregnancy is 40 weeks long, the math doesn't seem to work out evenly anyway, but I'll happily take the idea that I'm now out of the first trimester and Little Bear is in a safer place.

Keep your eye out for more LBC pictures as we have a second ultrasound on Monday!

The Gender Question

Ok, so we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but why not? ;)

Should we find out the gender of Little Bear in advance or wait until the Big Day?
	find out as soon as possible!
	wait it out and be surprised.
	have one of us know and the other not.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Name suggestions are now being taken

Although we still don't know LBC's gender (and whether we will find out ahead of schedule is still up for debate) we are currently entertaining name suggestions. Feel free to chime in. A sense of humor is fine, but we're actually looking for real possibilities. Examples of possible LBC names:

girls:
Zoe Elise Cable
Morgan Jade Cable

boys:
Owen Shae Cable
Miles Shae Cable

If LBC is a boy, his middle name is predetermined (as is the last, to be sure) so first name suggestions are all we're looking for...

Donna, Fritzy is not an option. Nor are Mable or Able. :D