1 week (hopefully) and counting : )

so last night i was using the bathroom and when i went to flush, i looked in the toilet and said to myself - what the heck is that?!!?

so after a little research, discovered that i had lost my mucus plug!

according to the american pregnancy association website:

"passing a mucus plug is a sign that your cervix is dilating and your body is starting to prepare for birth. labor could be hours, days, or even weeks away as the cervix gradually opens over time."

come on labor! well, not now, but next week would be great : )

ultrasound at fletcher allen

today we headed off to fletcher allen for another ultrasound. our doctors requested this ultrasound because i was measuring about 4 cm larger than i should have been, and they wanted to make sure that there was not excess fluid in there.

turns out everything is fine on that front. the baby, however, is measuring above the 80th percentile for weight!! with projections, going full-term could mean about a 9lb baby ... um, NO thanks!

everything looked great with the ultrasound. the baby was playing peek-a-boo with abbie and madison, and kept putting "his" arm over "his" face, making it difficult for the technician to take a good 3d photo.

we finally were able to get a pretty decent one (which i will upload soon).

all we are asking for is a healthy baby - so far so good : )

i passed!

I just found out that I passed with flying colors! Thankfully no gestational diabetes for me.

Our fourth ultrasound is on Monday at Fletcher Allen, so look for some new photos of Baby Lemnah!!

3 hour glucose test ... enough said!

Wednesday we had our 32 week check up and the baby sounds great, my blood pressure is perfect ... and I am measuring at 34 centimeters!! (Shawnna you can't complain about being 28 cm!)

Because I am measuring 3 cm larger than I should (2 cm if you use the due date I am using of March 11th - either way, it means i am HUGE) we are going to have another ultrasound at Fletcher Allen to see how big this baby is!

Because my first glucose test (okay, can I just say how DISGUSTING that orange drink is!! I think if I actually liked orange soda, it wouldn't be so bad, but YUCK!!) a couple of weeks ago was so borderline (my level was 124 and the cutoff for having gestational diabetes is 125!), Katie decided that I needed to do the 3 hour glucose test.

For those of you who have not experienced this - LUCKY! But it meant I had to fast starting at midnight and my appointment for my first blood drawing was at 8:45 am. Then I had to drink another bottle of the orange stuff and wait an hour to have my blood drawn again.

The girls were both sick, and had an appointment at 9:30. Turns out, they both have strep! Then at 10 I had my blood drawn again and headed to my parents' house so the girls could rest, as I had to return to the doctors at 11 and again at 12 for more blood work. Did I mention I couldn't eat this whole time?!!?

I ended up getting out of the doctor's late, which meant I still had to take a shower and get the girls ready before leaving to go get Derrick, so I decided I would try and wait to eat (to make up for lost time).

Well, going that long without eating did a number on me, as I almost fainted. The sweat was dripping off my face and my shirt was so soaked that I had to dry it in the dryer. Fun times.

We dropped the girls off and then headed to Montreal for the Stars vs Canadiens game. Long day, but well worth it. Though Dallas lost, I got to see my favorite player - Mike Modano - play one last time ... and he scored his 550th goal!!

I am nervous about the results of the blood work from yesterday ... I never had gestational diabetes with either of the girls ...

junior

One of the most asked questions when you are pregnant, just behind people wanting to know if it's a boy or girl, is:

Have you picked any names?

Well, Derrick decided to get my mom with this one. My dad's name is Stew, but because his full name is Stewart Philias Bouchard, Jr, my grandparents have always called him Junior. This drives my mom NUTS to say the least.

I was telling Derrick about how she really cannot stand this and he thought it would be really funny to tell my mom we were naming the baby Junior!

It was hilarious!! My mom went nuts, just as I had forewarned ... but it was so worth it : )

So yes (and no) we have names picked out.

Derrick and I agreed on a boy's name just after finding out (or so we thought) that we were having a boy ... but it is a surprise!

And I have a girl's name picked out, but it is going to be a surprise to everyone including Derrick ; )

All I will say is that Derrick, Abbie (Abigail), Madison and I all have seven letters in our first name, so the names each have seven letters.

it's a surprise ... again!

So for the last month I have been mentally preparing myself for having a boy and then finally it hit me - no one ever confirmed that we were having a boy!

The ultrasound technician certainly didn't confirm it, as I had told her we didn't want to know ... and we haven't been back to see the doctor until today.

So I walked in to our appointment with the ultrasound photos in hand. When Katie walked in, I handed her the photos and asked - we are having a boy, right?

She knew that we really didn't want to know, so she was surprised that I was asking. I explained what had happened at Fletcher Allen and pointed out the penis ... she looked at it and said that it was hard to really know for sure with the 3d photos because it is trying to make images of things that aren't really there. (For example, the baby doesn't have any arms in the photo). She told us not to paint the room blue.

So now we have no idea. Perhaps it's as Shawnna says, that she just told us that she didn't know because she knew we wanted it to be a surprise. But Katie had also told me before that she was really good at reading ultrasounds ... I am still mentally preparing for a boy : )

baby lemnah ~ 19 weeks, 1 day

Derrick, Abbie, Madison, and I went to Fletcher Allen today for our third ultrasound. We were pretty excited and hopeful that we would be able to see a 3d image of the baby. (3d wasn't around when I was pregnant with Abbie and Madison).

This ultrasound would have been the first opportunity to find out whether we were having a boy or girl. As some of you know, I never found out with either of the girls, so when I first found out I was pregnant, I was pretty adamant that I did not want to know this time either. But after talking with Neva about it, I realized that she was right - this was Derrick's first time having a baby and he really should be the one who decided. He decided that he wanted it to be a surprise, too.

As soon as we walked in I was sure to mention that we did not want to know the sex of the baby ...

The first images we saw were the regular ones - still very neat to be able to see our little munchkin. At one point I thought I saw something, but didn't think too much about it. Then it switched over to the 3d and ~ WOW ~ it was amazing! Sure enough, as you can see in the image above, right there in plain sight was what we were certain was a penis.

Truthfully, my heart sank. Obviously my first priority is to have a healthy baby, but I was really hoping for a girl. I went home and cried. Finally, Derrick and I sat down to talk about it. I was very honest and told him that I was worried that because this was his first biological child and it was a boy, that somehow he would treat this baby differently than he treated the girls. (That he would love this baby more than he loved the girls).

I am really glad that I told him how I was feeling. He told me that even though Abbie and Madison may not be his biological children, he loves them as though they are. I already knew how amazing he has been from day one with the girls, so that was all I needed to hear.