Pregnancy

It just occurred to me that I have not posted anything on my pregnancy!! Barney and I are expecting our second child on February 12, 2008. We had an ultrasound early on to determine the exact age and due date. Of course at the ultrasound it was just a tiny speck with a beating heart. Today I am 13 weeks along and next week I will begin my second trimester, crazy!! At first it was really hard to think about being pregnant. It is very different the second time around because you already have a little one at home to keep you occupied :) When I went for my big OB appointment I spoke with Dr. Patton about this and he assured me it was normal. He was like, "You have a toddler, you've been through it before." (By the way, it was great to see him as he was the doctor who delivered Kaitlyn 2 years ago.) So when he went to find the heartbeat the baby was hiding and he could not pick one up. Luckily they were able to fit me in for an ultrasound to pick up the heart rate and I got to have a second look at the baby! Of course, this time it actually looked like a baby. You could see the head, body, arms, and legs. Any boy oh boy was this baby active and had a strong heart beat. Not at all like Kaitlyn who was generally still during the ultrasound and had a lower heart beat. Barney and I have always said that since Kaitlyn was such a good baby the second one would probably be a terror!! We are very excited to have a new member of our family.
We are not sure yet if we will find out the baby's gender but we did decide to opt out of the disability testing that's offered. When Kaitlyn was born they had the test for Cystic Fibrosis and we opted out of that test. Now there is a test for Downs Syndrome and neural tube defects. Knowing that even if the baby has a chance for one of these disabilities we would still have the baby we decided not to have the testing. There are so many things that you cannot control when pregnant, during the delivery, and in the baby's first few years of life that could lead to having a disabled child. My doctor explained to me that while they are more accurate now they are not 100% perfect in giving the correct results. For instance, with the Downs test you just what your percentage of having a baby with Downs would be. The test could come back saying I have a 1 in 60 chance of having a baby with Downs or a 1 in 4,000 chance of having a baby with Downs. I just would not want to be stressed if I came back with the 1 in 60 chance for my whole pregnancy. Anyway, being a teacher of students with severe special needs I know how special all children are.
So enough about that! Kaitlyn's furniture was moved into the small room while we get her room ready for her to move in with big girl furniture. Then the small room will be prepared to become the new baby's room. It will be nice this time around to have a decorated nursery as we really could not change the wall color in the apartment when Kaitlyn was born. I just can't wait to get out all of the little baby clothes again!!