Our 24 Week Prenatal Visit

Everything is going well so far! We got our ultrasound results and Annabelle is healthy and perfect! She is a mover and shaker already, and Kyle is now finally able to feel her kick! Sometimes she makes me whole belly shake with her wiggles. It's the best feeling in the world!
We are now at an important point in the pregnancy (from the point of view of a labor and delivery nurse), which is that Annabelle could survive (albeit with a long and difficult road in the NICU) if she were to be born for any reason at this point. She is around 1 1/2 pounds now and her little organs are developing more each day.
Kyle and I are taking a childbirth education class together this Saturday to help us prepare for natural birth as a couple and a team. He will be my primary support person and I know he is up to the task! He has already been an incredible support so far during this pregnancy. Annie already has him wrapped around her little finger, and she's not even born yet!
In other news, I quit my job at MUSC after four amazing and sometimes difficult years. Starting in mid-December, I will be a full-time clinical student at the birth center. I will be in the office seeing patients Monday-Thursday and on call to catch babies Friday-Sunday. Between that, looking for jobs, and getting ready to be a mom, I will keep busy!
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to more holiday fun!

A little late...

But here is my Halloween costume! This was truly a pain in the butt to make, but I think it turned out pretty cute anyhow! I free-handed everything except the baby, which I printed online, cut out, and glued on with white paint.

Everything went well at our prenatal visit; Tadpole/Annabelle is healthy and growing more every day! I can actually feel her kick now, though Kyle still can't. She is a little wiggle worm who swims around all day! We're taking a childbirth class together on December 3rd, the same week as our next prenatal visit. I will update you all again soon!

Surprise...

It's a long story, but Kyle convinced me to find out the sex of the baby. So for those of you who wanted to know, you win! We asked the ultrasound tech to write it down for us so we could go out to dinner and find out by ourselves. She asked if had chosen names yet, but we didn't know exactly how she was going to write it out for us.

The envelope containing the big reveal:

The reveal on camera:

It's a Girl!!!

We're having a daughter! Her name is Annabelle Jane Hirchert, though we have already take to calling her Annie, A.J., and Banana ;)

The ultrasound went well, though the tech can't legally tell us anything official. We do know that all her organs are present and accounted for. We also learned that her placenta is on the front side of my uterus, which means that it will take a couple more weeks before I can really feel her kick. She's kicking the placenta now! We will get the official report at our next prenatal on Halloween, check back in then for more information and my costume!

17 Weeks and Counting!

Hello everyone! Tadpole and I had another prenatal visit this week, and everything is going well so far. Tadpole's heartbeat is still nice and strong, and he or she is moving a lot but I still can't feel it!
Our next big milestone is the anatomy scan, which will be done at the birth center's consulting obstetrician's office. The ultrasound tech will measure Tadpole from head to toe, the length of the femurs in the legs, around the belly, and around the head. These measurements will tell us if Tadpole is growing appropriately.
The four chambers of the heart will be viewed, as well as the kidneys, bladder, stomach, brain, spinal cord, sex organs, umbilical cord, and placenta. This survey of the organs ensures that they are developing normally (or identifies any potential problems as soon as possible).
The ultrasound tech will also measure the amount of amniotic fluid and determine the location of the umbilical cord and placenta. The entire ultrasound takes 30-45 minutes to get a good view of everything, and depends on how cooperative the baby is!
This ultrasound is important because it will tell us if Tadpole has any congenital health problems, and if not (which we expect), tells us that we are good to deliver at the birth center! Our ultrasound is scheduled for October 18th, when I will be 19 weeks and 1 day. We'll have our next prenatal visit two weeks after that on Halloween! I'll be sure to post pictures and maybe even video from the ultrasound when we have them.

Pregnancy Update

Last week we had our first prenatal visit with our fabulous midwives! We got to hear Tadpole's heartbeat for the first time which was amazing! We could also hear him or her kicking, but I still can't feel it. Everything is going great so far; Tadpole's growth is right on track and my pregnancy symptoms are very manageable. We will have a prenatal visit every four weeks until I'm 28 weeks along, and then every two weeks. In 4 weeks or so we will have the anatomy ultrasound, which looks at all of Tadpole's organs and limbs to make sure everything is ok. Hopefully we will both get a clean bill of health!
For those of you that don't know much about birth centers, I will be delivering at Charleston Birth Place. Most birth centers, including this one, are run by Certified Nurse Midwives. They have two back-up obstetricians and practice privileges at a local hospital in case more help is needed during pregnancy or labor. This video shows a tour of the birth center, and they also have a Q&A page. It is a very different environment form a typical hospital labor and delivery unit! I have worked at Charleston Birth Place for almost three years, and I will also be catching babies there in the weeks before I deliver! It is a wonderful place!

This is a beautiful (albeit long!) and non-graphic video of some professional labor and birth photography from the birth center.

Just a Quick Update!

I snuck a quick peek of Tadpole today at work with one of our ultrasounds, and he or she is growing so fast! I could see the head and body and a little arm waving at me! Tadpole still has a strong, fast, heartbeat. I can't believe how fast time is already going by; soon I'll be in my second trimester and starting to show.

Here is a little video of Tadpole waving hi to everyone!

Tadpole is the wiggling little thing on the right side of the big black circle. The head is down, and you can see little blips of the heartbeat in the middle and a couple of little waves of the arm!

Tadpole has graduated...

from a tiny embryo to a growing fetus! He or she is now about the size of an olive, and is beginning to dance and move his or her limbs- not that we can feel that movement yet.

We decided to start our maternity picture series today, which is basically the "before" shot because I don't have any baby belly yet. We are going to take most of our pictures at the Angel Oak Tree, which is one of our favorite sites in Charleston. We have a huge oak tree painted on our living room wall (by Kathy's friend Terry) with our family pictures hung on it's "branches," so it seemed apropos to take our growing family pictures there!

Here are our favorite shots of the day!

The Soon-to-be-Bigger Belly!

With our first first ultrasound picture from 7 weeks.

Can't wait to feel this baby kick!

(Click on the pictures to zoom in!)

Photogenic!

We are so excited that our family and friends know about this pregnancy! We had a hard time keeping it secret for a couple weeks, but we really wanted to see that sweet little heartbeat before we shared the good news. Here is Tadpole's first picture!

Tadpole at 7 weeks. The large black circle is the gestational sac, or basically what will become the bag of water. The little grey oval inside it is Tadpole! This was our first ultrasound, and it was especially exciting because we got to see the flickering heartbeat.

Tadpole will be 10 weeks on Monday, August 15th. That means that in only two weeks, Jenny will be moving into her second trimester. She is very happy about this because she's hoping that some of her energy will return, and because she and Kyle and will be able to feel Tadpole move! For most first-time mama's, this happens around 18-20 weeks.
Thanks for visiting our blog, and we will keep you all updated!

Write to Tadpole!

Jenny saw this sweet video on a Google blog a few months and was inspired to do something similar when she and Kyle decided to expand their family. 

If you would like to contribute, you can email Tadpole at DearTadpole@gmail.com. Feel free to email as little or as often as you want; we really want our friends and extended family to be a big part of Tadpole's life. Pictures are encouraged!

Dear Family and Friends...

We decided to start this blog to document Jenny's pregnancy with stories and pictures to share with all of you. We are so very excited to be expecting, even though Tadpole is going to arrive at a somewhat hectic time for Jenny! We don't plan to find out the sex of the baby, so that will be a big fun surprise for all of us!
So far everything is going very well, and Jenny is feeling great. Tadpole's pregnancy "birthday" is Monday, so he or she will turn a new week old every Monday. On Monday, August 1st Tadpole will turn 8 weeks old (about 2 months), and he or she is due on March 12, 2012 (or anytime 2 weeks before or after that!). Thanks for visiting our blog, and we look forward to updating you on our journey to parenthood!
Love,
Jenny and Kyle