One Day I'll Have A Flawless Appointment

I am determined to, one day, have an entirely normal baby appointment, but apparently today was not that day. I think Baby Declan just likes having his picture being taken.

Oh, I suppose I haven't officially announced this: We feel pretty confident that Little Baby's first name is Declan! We're not sure about middle names yet. Declan (pronounced Dek-lin) is Irish, and it means "man of prayer," which we really liked. That's what I hope for my son-- that he'll be a man of prayer.

Anyway, back to the appointment news. I met with a different doctor today; they're trying to introduce me to all of the doctors on staff so that I'm familiar with whomever happens to be on call the day labor occurs. They did an ultrasound in order to get pictures of baby's nose and lips. His nose was apparently really hard to find, but we got there in the end. :) Declan had his foot in his mouth today, which I thought was adorable!

After that I met with the new doctor, who was really nice, despite the fact she couldn't give me a clean report. Apparently (from what I can understand-- doctors speak their own language) they spotted an atypical coloring on the ultrasound. I'm pretty sure she said his bowel, which is normally a grayish tone, was bright-- more close to the color of his bones than anything else. She said sometimes this can be an indicator of either cystic fibrosis or down syndrome. We'd opted to have the cystic fibrosis test done, but not the down syndrome. She immediately ruled out cystic fibrosis, since that test was negative, but said it could still be an indicator of down syndrome.

Now, here's the impression I got: She wasn't very pleased with me for opting against the down syndrome test. In fact, none of the doctors were. They all kind of told me "it's your choice, we're not pushing you one way or the other," but they were. One of my doctors even said "you know, we have a no return policy here, so we encourage you to take the test." The implication was essentially that I should do the test so I could abort if I so chose. So, I was not surprised when my doctor today was displeased with me for not having done the test. And  the impression I got was that her warning that it could be an implication of down syndrome was said a little moodily, as in "if you'd just done the test we could rule it out right now."

But I hadn't done the test. So they're sending me back to the specialist for another ultrasound to make sure everything still looks good to the specialist.

Perhaps I'm frustrated because I'm just about six months pregnant, but by the time I left the office today I was a little bit fed up. I had to meet with the nurse so she could help set up my specialist appointment. I had to meet with the lab techs so they could run more tests. I had to meet with the technician so she could confirm what she noted on the ultrasound. And with the exception of the technician, I was mostly regarded as an inconvenience. Everybody who I came into contact with rolled their eyes at me for not having done this simple test.

Well, you know what? I think I've literally heard scary news every time I've been in that office. I hate going, at this point, because I go alone and can never anticipate a painless visit. And maybe it would have been easier had I just done the test in the first place, but I didn't, and now you're telling me my son could be at risk in the same breath as you're scolding me in.

By the end of my visit,when the nurse was ordering my urine sample, she bid me goodbye with "and try not to mess up your urine sample." I bit my tongue and promised I wouldn't, but I was secretly thinking, "why yes, I have narcotics here in my pocket that I'm planning to ingest prior to peeing in the cup, just so you'll have to run another one."

Other than THAT, however, the visit was positive. I'm not complaining about getting to see my baby again, and hopefully the specialist will say the same thing he said before-- that Declan looks great and he's not concerned. He looked good today (besides his bowel, and whose bowel ever looks fantastic anyway?), and is actually measuring eight days ahead of schedule. The projected due date based off of his measurements today put us at July 9th! Crazy! Also, my blood pressure was awesome today, so praise God.

I hope everyone is having a blessed week, and we appreciate all the people praying for our beautiful son!

It's A......

Well, after 21 weeks of wondering, we finally know how to address our baby when using pronouns!




We can now say with definite confidence that Baby Dunham is a boy! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the Dunham name has survived another generation. That was definitely the highlight of the most recent round of baby appointments.

Our first appointment was yesterday (Monday) with the specialist. It was actually rescheduled to a three o'clock time slot-- something that was beneficial for us, as Matt was able to make this appointment (a hard thing to do with his school schedule).

When they located Little Baby's manhood, the tech promptly circled the vicinity and drew a bright yellow arrow directing the untrained eye to the proof that he is, in fact, a boy. In case there was any doubt, she also added the following caption: "Looks like a boy!!!!!!!" I got a kick out of that.

They also identified equally important, but less focused upon body parts, such as his kidneys, heart, spine, stomach, and brain. It made me happy that Matt got to enjoy the experience too.

The doctor seemed pretty satisfied with Little Baby's growth, and didn't schedule another appointment with me-- that was exciting! The fibroid is still a fibroid, and looks maybe slightly bigger, but pretty much the same.

Today's doctor appointment, which was with my regular doctor, was not as uneventful as I would have liked, but still a positive visit. We looked at Little Baby again-- he's still a boy, so that was good. At this visit, the tech likewise circled the general area and added the caption "Boy Parts!!!!!" I'm convinced that these techs utilize the gender labeling portion of the procedure as an opportunity to make the job a little more creative.

Little Baby weighs about 15 ounces-- so, as my mom pointed out, close to a coke! I gained my weight back and am on track with that.

The only snag in the appointment (there had to be one, haha) was when they took my blood pressure. It was a bit elevated, which is strange for me. I've always had really good blood pressure. The doctor did note it as irregular enough to watch. She said it could be a sign of pre-eclampsia (I can't spell that), but that it was unlikely. I'm only 21 weeks, so while it's possible, generally pre-eclampsia is a condition onset later in pregnancy. All in all, she said it was not likely and not to worry.

Of course, after hearing some other scary news in the same office, it was pretty hard to convince myself not to do exactly that. She scheduled me for a follow up appointment in two weeks rather than four so that they can monitor my blood pressure and possibly take another look at Little Baby. My wonderful sister-in-law, who is giving birth any day now herself, put my mind at ease too when I asked her about blood pressure stuff. So for now, I'm not worried but am praying about it!

You may have noticed that, despite the gender news, we're still referring to Little Baby as "Little Baby." Well, had Little Baby been a girl, we'd be calling her Addison Joy right now... but we're still up in the air about a boy. Matt is going to put a suggestion box in his classroom. I'm sure we'll get some real winners there, haha!

At our wedding, we had a "predictions page" that asked guests to guess when our first child would be born and what his/her name would be. We had one prediction for 06/25/11 as the first baby's birth date. As we were married on 06/24/11, I really hope I didn't look nine months pregnant in my wedding dress, haha. Some great name suggestions included Bubba, Tyrod Taylor, BobJim, and Ali Farukmanesh.

Needless to say, we're still deciding. We will be sure to let everyone know when we do!

Praise the Lord for our beautiful son!