holy baby update, batman

I have obviously been slacking on the baby updates. We had our 16 week ultrasound (3 weeks ago!) and baby proudly showed off his "beautiful spine" and healthy brain. Oh, and the sonographer said she was 90% sure that it's a BOY.

In the past three weeks, the tiny flutters I was feeling have morphed into full-blown kicks, my belly has turned into a constantly expanding entity that changes shape throughout the day, and I am already developing an obsession with cushy cloth diapers. Did I mention the boy already has a potential name (Orrin, though the spelling and middle name are still up for debate) and quite the healthy start to a wardrobe?

All that, and I still don't really believe that we're going to have a baby. Not quite. It's one of those terrible perks to being a part of the dead baby club--you are fully aware of everything that can go wrong, and you know IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. It can, and I am not under any illusions that tragedy can't or won't strike twice, either. Believe me, I would rather not feel like this. How I would love to have just an ounce of my old innocence back, that blind faith that pregnancy automatically equals baby. That absurd notion that of course things went wrong, babies died, but not to me, not my baby. It's all just a big gamble to me now. I am holding my breath, in a sense, until that baby is screaming his head off in the outside world.

I don't think I have looked forward to Christmas time so much since I was a little kid.

For fun, a three week progression of the belly:


Funny that it looks the biggest at 17 weeks. That was when it really started popping out, and has been rounding out more in the last couple weeks. It is also frequently bigger on one side (where baby is laying) and can grow or shrink a few inches depending on any bloat that may happen. Don't mind my ridiculously tired/half dead look...growing this one on top of a busy summer at work is taking it out of me.