Sweet Baby Shower Preparations

My mom always makes chocolates for special occasions and my baby shower is a super special occasion. We spent several hours online looking to find just the right chocolate molds and containers. Mom worked on making the chocolates several days before the party and of course the weather was not cooperating but the chocolates still came out cute and I even unpacked and charged my good camera to take some photos.

These baby blocks are actually designed to hold chocolate covered double stuff oreos. As I heard someone at the party say, "oooh, there is a surprise inside!" What can I say, they are cute and delicious! And since we didn't know bunny's gender yet we tried to make an even number of pink and blue things.

If my mom spent a lot of time making candy, Nina spent as much time putting everything together and making it look nice. Here are the baby bottle party favors that every guest got. They are stuffed with chocolate covered almonds and custom m&m's that were printed for the shower. The fuzzy bunnies attached were a big hit.

These little chocolate animals were used to stuff some adorable gift bags. Sadly, I did not get a good picture of those, but I promise they came out super cute.

I'm very grateful that I have such wonderful family that was here to help prep for the party. It turns out everyone had a great time and I have my moms and sister to thank for that. More about the party and possibly a gender revealing cake next time. 

Gender Predictions

Everyone is asking if baby bunny is a boy or a girl. I don't know yet, and I have not had any strong feelings or convincing dreams either way. Oddly enough some of the ladies I know told me they "just know" or "have had a feeling" about what the baby will be. While I am okay not knowing until the gender reveal at my shower (if possible) there are a lot of "gender prediction tests" out there that will supposedly tell me early.

Now honestly there is no scientific evidence that any of these actually work but I thought it would be fun to go through some of the most common ones and see if they have similar or different results.

1. The Chinese Gender Prediction
Legend says that the gender chart is more than 700 years old and was discovered in a royal tomb. It predicts your baby's sex based on the mother's Chinese lunar age at the time of conception and the Chinese lunar month in when the baby was conceived. I used a website to calculate my numbers and got a GIRL result.

2. The Baking Soda Test
Put enough baking soda into a cup to cover the bottom, then pee into the cup. If the baking soda fizzes or foams like beer, the mothers is having a boy, if it doesn’t react, a girl. I figured I had a box of baking soda sitting around so this would be an easy test to do. The result was fizzy indicating a BOY.

3. The Wedding Ring Test
Take a wedding ring and attach it to a thread or strand of hair. Hold the dangling item over mom to be's belly while she is lying down. If the wedding ring swings in a strong circular motion, she will be having a girl. If it moves in a to and fro motion like a pendulum, she will be having a boy. There is no absence of yarn in my house, but I did need to get my wedding ring since it doesn't fit anymore. 20 seconds later I watched the ring swing back and forth suggesting a BOY.

4. Genital Tubercle Angle Theory
Based on a 12-14 week ultrasound, a profile view of the genital region is needed. A horizontal line can then be drawn along the lower portion of the spine and then another one through the genital tubercle. Based on the angle of intersection between those lines, you can determine the gender.
Boy = greater than 30 degrees. Girl = less than 10 degrees. I was lazy and didn't try to figure this out myself but showed someone else my scans and they are claiming it is a GIRL.

5. Ramzi/Skull Theory
Rumor has it that you can determine the gender of your baby based on an early ultrasound by studying the shape of their skull. Baby girls are thought to have a more rounded forehead while baby boys will look more flat or slightly slope backwards. Looking at my last scan it looks like a BOY to me.

6. Mayan Number Theory 
I've never heard of this one before. Supposedly the Mayans combine the mother's age at conception, and the year of conception. If the result is a even number, it's a girl. If the result is an odd number, a little boy is on the way. (29+ 2014= 2043) or a BOY.

7. The Heartbeat Test
If the baby's heartbeat is 140 beats-per-minute or above, it's a girl. Below 140, a boy. At my 12 week ultrasound the heartbeat was 161 leading me to say GIRL for this test.

As you can see I got a pretty even split of 3 girl results and 4 boy results, which is not super surprising since there is a 50/50 chance of predicting correctly.  Though I suppose if all of the tests pointed one way or another I might find it a little creepy.  I guess only time (and fingers crossed - my next ultrasound) will tell.

Heartbeat & Hello Second Trimester

Last week I had a quick OB checkup where I got to hear the baby's heartbeat. I guess some people think it sounds like galloping horses, but I didn't think of that. It was more like listening to the heartbeat of the ocean. The doctor actually had a harder time finding the heartbeat so I didn't think to pull out my phone and try to record it. Overall it was a pretty quick checkup and I now have appointments for more blood work and an anatomy scan in early August. She said I wouldn't know the gender before my shower so I made an appointment with a private place to have a 2D scan when people are visiting next month so they can see the baby in person.

Tomorrow baby bunny is 14 weeks old and the size of a peach! Some calculations count week 13 as the beginning of the second trimester and others wait until week 14. Either way hello second trimester!

I'm supposed to have more energy now, but we will see. Since my first trimester was really tame, I don't think I will feel that much difference. The one pregnancy symptom I actually have been dealing with and wasn't expecting is a very dry nose. I've got a humidifier running to try and minimize the symptoms but I am hoping I won't get a bloody nose, as I've never had one before.

12 Week Scan - Attack of the Vampire

Thursday I went for a nuchal tube exam. It is a two part exam where they look at blood work and do an ultrasound where they take measurements of the baby's size, the fluid behind the neck, and check to see if there is a visible nasal done. This is a non-invasive exam that is pretty good at assessing the risk for downs syndrome and other birth defects. This was also done by the state instead of my normal doctor so I was at a different facility. I didn't know if they would give me any pictures of the baby (they did) but they are not very exciting pictures.

The top picture is a closeup of the head. You can see a marker and a number where they were measuring the fluid under the neck. The bottom picture is the baby getting squished while doing the ultrasound. Bunny didn't like it much and kept kicking and squirming to get away. This ultrasound was a belly ultrasound instead of transvaginal, but overall I found it more uncomfortable than my first exam.

After the actual exam I went and talked to a doctor who was looking for donations of blood from normal pregnancies for a research study. The idea is to do blood tests that are around 10 weeks where you identify baby cells in the mother's blood and they can use it as a predictor for sex, downs syndrome, and other defects. Currently the tests are covered by insurance and cost about $1000. The idea is to get more data and make it standard, cheaper and available to everyone.

I had planned on walking to BART from my appointment so I asked how much blood they needed. 1.5 oz didn't seem like a lot and last appointment they took 8 tubes so I figured I would be okay. Nope about 2 vials in (out of 6!) I got lightheaded and my vision stated getting blurry. The guy was nice and got me some water and then I texted Laura to see if she could come get me because I was too dizzy to walk. In the car I told her what happened and said I felt like I was attacked by a vampire. First he flattered me by saying my pregnancy was normal, than he stole my blood. On the other hand hooray for research studies and hopefully some good karma will come my way!

My Favorite Reaction Moments

This post is dedicated to my brother and sister who did an amazing job keeping my secret and helping me set up my special surprise. It would not have been possible without their help.

Before my first ultrasound I had been in contact with my sister about surprising my mom and dad with the news. Originally I considered flying home, but then realized a 7-9 hour flight would have been uncomfortable and if I actually came home people would have guessed the surprise right away. Instead my sister did an excellent job of wrapping presents for my mom and dad. She snuck to the bathroom and put me on speakerphone so I could hear it all and my brother recorded it for me. I think I've watched this video about 50 times and here are my favorite moments from it. I've ordered them in chronological order and tried to include the time codes where possible.





 1. Aunt Chrissy Gets It ~ 0:18
Aunt Chrissy was around for much of my childhood and I am so happy she happened to be here today. Her reaction is one of my favorite parts of this video and her gasp was the only thing I could hear on the phone. I love that she looks, she gasps because she gets it and then she is processing what that tiny shirt that says grandpa really means. I think dad gets it just a few seconds later when he says "uh-oh". But Aunt Chrissy's face is just priceless.

2. The Jaw Drop ~ 0:26
Mom's present was an frame with an ultrasound photo inside. The actual photos we got were a little small so I scanned the photo into the computer, enlarged it to the important stuff and added the due date in a cute font. Dani had to take the styrofoam parts out of the actual box because it said something about babies all over it and would be too obvious.

Watching mom's jaw drop totally made the price of overnight shipping worth it. She said later on the phone that those 12 seconds felt like forever and her brain couldn't process what she say. She knew what the photo was of, but not really what it meant. It sounded a little unreal and it is interesting to me to watch the video and see her jaw just drop. If you watch in the rest of the video she keeps coming back to the photo and just looking at it.

3. The Shirt Grab ~ 0:34
I am not quite sure why I find this as hilarious as I do, but I love that Aunt Chrissy reaches over and starts shaking my mom by the collar of her shirt. It seems like a moment of oh my god, do you believe this, do you really believe this?

4. Everyone Smile ~ 0:40
This is the brief moment when Dani who did so much to make everything happen is in the shot and you can just see a huge smile on her face. Then you see mom, dad, and Aunt Chrissy and everyone is all smiles and tears of joy. I was pretty sure my family would be happy about the news, but there is always a little bit of uncertainty there and all the smiles here just mean so much to me.

5. Who's the Mother? ~ 0:55
My ultrasound had been scheduled for several weeks so the fact that extended family was in town and there was a big outing to the restaurant was another happy coincidence. However, by necessity of being a surprise most people at the table were not in at what the presents really were. Since the presents were from me but delivered by Dani it confused my Great Aunt Connie just a bit.

6. Oh My God ~1:15
Practically the only thing mom is able to say for the length of the recording is "oh my god". It's barely audible but oh so powerful. Part of the reason this is such a big shock is that mom was talking to me on facebook the day before and she was talking about kids and I had already mailed the surprise presents but I didn't want her to suspect so I turned the conversation and basically implied that kids were something I wasn't really expecting. Apparently I did a really good job of convincing her too!

7. Mamma mamma mamma mamma mamma! ~ 1:20
So when my sister and I were little kids The Lion King came out (20 years ago today!) and dad took us to see it in the drive through, in the regular theater, in the dollar theater. I know we say it 23 times in theaters as a kid and he must have been there for a majority of them. Early in the movie there is a scene where Simba tries to wake Mufasa up and you can hear him in the background saying "dad dad dad dad dad dad dad".  I can't be certain but it seems like dad teasing and saying "momma momma momma" here is a subconscious throwback to that.

8. Wish You Were Here... ~ 1:36
It is just a coincidence that dad is wearing this shirt. It was actually the name of a concert we went to together years ago, but it is interesting he just happened to be wearing it today.

9. Wah! ~ 1:45
Dad was out of camera range for a little bit, which is actually okay because he got his present open quite a bit quicker than mom. But I think it is cute that he says "Wah!" and shows off the shirt I got. It actually came in a couple of colors, but I thought the light blue was the prettiest (I can't help that I am partial to blue), but I think that led some people to think I was announcing a boy. We actually don't know yet, and everyone who has had a "feeling" thus far has said girl, but only  time will tell. Anyway my dad is a pretty tall guy and looking at the little shirt he is holding vs the shirt he is wearing just seems kind of crazy.

10. Here Have a ... Napkin ~ 2:30
Dani did a great job of prepping everything for the surprise. My appointment was late afternoon on a Thursday and I had to fedex overnight the ultrasound photo, frame, and shirt to her address for it to be there in time for her to give it to mom and dad that weekend. One thing I didn't think to tell Dani to take was kleenex. I was so concerned with scanning the photo and getting it in the mail that it didn't even cross my mind. It's silly but it makes me laugh at myself. Here is a life-changing thing and everyone is excited and mom is crying and here.... have a napkin.

Everyone Loves A Snoogle

In general I know there are some pregnancy/maternity things that are useful and some that are just not necessary. The Snoogle is a big, skinny, pillow that is also about $50 on amazon. Normally I wouldn't spend $50 on a pillow, but a lot of the women on the forums I frequent swear by the Snoogle and get angry when their husbands steal it when they get out of bed. I ordered it because I've always been a tummy sleeper and while that  is technically okay until it isn't comfortable anymore, I'm afraid I'll end up on my back during the night. The Snoogle is made  to wrap around and support your back, so you can't easily roll over. So far it's been pretty comfy and my cat, Odette was curling up with me last night because she seemed to really like the pillow. Then when I was at work Ben sent me the picture below.

It's a little silly when I have to worry about my cat stealing my fancy pillow and not my husband!

Transvaginal Ultrasound

My first appointment was at "8 weeks" and wasn't much more than answering a bunch of questions and a glorified pap smear, so it isn't worth a posting about. I did get 7 vials of blood taken so they ran a lot of tests and everything came back looking very good. No diabetes, no hormone problems, and I had all of the immunities I was supposed to have.  But I didn't get to see the baby or learn if everything was okay so that was kind of difficult. They scheduled my ultrasound for the 28th and I just had to wait until then.

Ben and I waited for a while before it was our turn for the ultrasound. I was worried about the probe hurting or being uncomfortable. I tried googling images of what went where exactly and the wand looked pretty big so I went in expecting the worst but it was not that bad at all. Pap smears are was more uncomfortable. And all of a sudden a little tiny baby was on the screen dancing all around. This was actually surprising to me because I knew babies moved and kicked later, but I thought they were pretty chill at this stage of the game. Nope, our little bunny was wiggling all over the place.

According to my last menstrual period my due date should have been 12/24, but I was pretty certain I would get bumped back a few days due to my longer than average cycles. The computer measured the baby from head to butt and came up with a new due date of 12/29. More tests and checkups are on the way but I cannot even describe the sense of relief to see bunny moving around. Oh and the doctor said everything looked great!