15 Weeks

According to my calculations, if Lacy carries this little peanut to term, she is officially 37.5% of the way there. She is still continuing to do well, with no real issues to speak of. The nausea seems to have died down almost completely, her energy is improving, and she is still getting to exercise. She is having a lot of trouble picking out clothes to wear, as nothing seems to fit like it used too, I can’t imagine why. She says she is in the “in between stage”, where people can’t tell if she’s pregnant, or “just getting fat”. I try not to laugh, but it is funny because I think she is so cute with her little belly, but she is stressing over it. She has nightmares, literally, about what she is going to wear to work the next day. She also is going to the bathroom much more frequent as the weeks pass by. I’m glad her side of the bed is the one closest to the bathroom.

Yikes! Sad she has to wear preggo clothes, but happy she has some pants
that will never get to tight, haha.

The baby now measures about 4 inches long and weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces (about the size of an apple). It’s busy moving amniotic fluid through his/her nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in the lungs begin to develop. The legs are growing longer than his/her arms now, and he/she can move all of his/her joints and limbs. Although the eyelids are still fused shut, he/she can sense light. If I were to shine a flashlight at Lacy’s tummy, the baby is likely to move away from the beam. There's not much for the baby to taste at this point, but he/she is forming taste buds. I can’t imagine that there is anything good to eat in there anyway, especially since he/she has discovered how to use the bathroom by now. Finally, if we were to have an ultrasound this week, we may be able to find out whether the baby's a boy or a girl! It would be tough, but possible. Nailing down the baby's sex depends on the clarity of the picture and the baby's position. He or she may be modestly curled up or turned in such a way as to "hide the goods." I think we are scheduled to find out the sex of the baby at the end of this month or first of next month. The anticipation is mounting daily.

We have some names picked out, but they seem to change from week to week. There is one name that has stuck since the day we thought of it. It is a girl’s name and it is a secret. I think Lacy thought of it, as she has been the name picker outer up to this point. As we get closer to finding out the baby’s sex I have got more involved in that process because it seems more real now for some reason.

Lacy should be able to feel the baby move around in the coming weeks, I read that she can start feeling the subtle movements at the beginning of week 16, but they get more aggressive as she gets to week 22 and beyond.

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P.S. I DID run the half marathon, and I lived to tell about it, ha. More to come on that later….

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Last Friday's 40 Under Forty Gala



14 Weeks

Lacy is now 14 weeks and 1 day and we are now moving onto the second trimester! Notice how I said “we”? I mean Lacy. She is doing great and over a third of the way to the finish line. As you can see from the picture, Lacy is growing right along with the baby and developing a noticeable “bump”. It’s important to note that Daddy is not growing with Momma and baby, ha.

Grow Baby Grow

Lacy seems to be getting some of her energy back, although she is having trouble falling asleep at night which makes it hard to wake up. She is still getting dizzy and queasy at times, but it doesn’t happen too often and is usually brief. She’s been committed to exercising and walking, and she has been able to do it regularly.

The baby is roughly the size of a lemon now, measuring three and a half inches and weighing one and a half ounces. Fingerprints have formed and all the vital organs can be seen through its still thin skin. The baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and suck its thumb! I am imagining all of these skills taking place at the same time and it makes me laugh. Just like Daddy in the mornings minus the sucking my thumb part. Thanks to brain impulses, its facial muscles are getting a workout as its tiny features form one expression after another. The kidneys are producing urine, which are released into the amniotic fluid around him/her — a process that will keep up until birth. He/she can grasp, too.

Its body is growing faster than its head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, the arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (The legs still have some lengthening to do.) He/she is starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over its body. The baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and the spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Although we cannot see or feel it yet, the baby is getting much more active and his/her dancing skills are starting to heat up. Let’s hope the poor thing doesn’t take after me in that department.

All of this is going on inside Lacy’s body; it is still fascinating for me to think about that. Human life has developed and is beginning to live out his/her plan that God has prepared for him/her. We can find out in 5-6 weeks if the baby is in fact a “him” or “her” and we will definitely find out. That should make this blog a little easier to read and I can stop calling it an “it”.

Half marathon this Sunday and I am still not signed up. I took a week off from running because it was wearing me down. My body is just not used to all the stress that running causes. It’s a different type of workout than going to the gym or doing p90x. I think I have tried to cram too much training into to short of a time period. I ran six and a half miles last night on a very hilly course. I finished in exactly an hour and I felt pretty good when I was finished. Although today, I am very sore. The sorest I have been since I started training. My longest run since I started training is eight to nine miles, and a half marathon is 13.1 miles. People say adrenaline carries you the last two to three miles, but what about the two to three miles before the last two to three miles??? I think I could do a 5k or 10k with relative ease, but I may be in over my head with a half marathon at this stage. I have not completely ruled it out, but I think I would fare better if I train another month or so and then try to do it. There are some other opportunities in the area in October and November. I’m not going to over do it the next couple days and re-evaluate on Friday. My body is telling me I’m crazy, but my mind is also saying it’s possible. Stay tuned.

It's Football Time In Tennessee!!!!



Ultrasound #3

I’m going to switch things up this time around. For those of you who were worried about my dedication to training for the half marathon, this is for you. Out of nowhere yesterday I found the motivation to run the eight miles that I was supposed to run last Sunday. To my surprise it wasn’t too bad and I actually had some fuel left in the tank at the end. I’m not sure I could have taken another step because my knees felt like grape jelly, but I felt pretty good other than that. I’m sure my knees felt that way because they simply have never been under that kind of stress for that amount of time, hopefully this will get better with time. The run was boring and I have yet to experience the “runner’s high”, but I did discover a secret that may help with future runs. Podcasts.

I usually run with my iPod pumping out a new song every 3-4 minutes and quite frankly the music was getting old. If you have any good tunes to run too let me know. While I was logged onto iTunes I came across podcasts. I have heard of these before but never paid much attention to them until now. There are plenty of podcasts that are free on just about any topic you can think of. I chose three podcasts to listen to while on my run.

1. Wall Street Recap – This was nice to listen to instead of reading all the news the next morning. I felt like I had a leg up on my job after listening to this.

2. Men’s Health Articles – I listened to conversations about articles from the current Men’s Health Magazine. This was tough to listen to because they spent a majority of the time discussing how prolonged slow cardio work wasn’t the greatest thing in the world for burning fat or improving athletically. Good thing I am not doing this for either of those reasons. It also talked about how men who consume 1-2 alcoholic drinks daily live longer then those who do not drink at all. This was encouraging, but also hard to think about while running. When Gatorade is the only beverage on your mind, thinking about red wine or Guinness stout is a bad idea.

3. Fantasy Football Focus – Self explanatory, who doesn’t need a little help managing their fantasy football team?

Needless to say, not only did I have a sense of accomplishment after my run, I also felt smarter.


Now to the fun part, Lacy’s 3rd ultrasound. Everything went great, and Lacy is no longer considered “high risk” and can begin tapering off her medication. They have been keeping a close eye on her throughout the first trimester, partially because her hormone levels were so low in the beginning, but we got the “all clear” light from the doctor today.

Ultrasound #3

We heard the heartbeat again today and it was strong, measuring 166 bpm. I think last time around it measured 165 bpm, so it’s consistent. I guess a good thing that comes with being high risk is multiple ultrasounds in the beginning stages, so we have been able to see the baby really develop over the past couple months. It is exciting to see the baby actually look like a baby now, and to see how far it has come in just a short amount of time. Every time I am in that ultrasound room with Lacy all I can think about is that all of this is truly a miracle. I am amazed at the process and look forward to what is in store next. I have posted a couple pictures from today. It looks like the baby is sucking its thumb and during the ultrasound you could really see the baby and all the parts. It will be nice when we can call the baby he or she, it feels wrong calling it an “it”, ha. Eight more weeks and we will know. Lacy is still doing well, with no real issues to speak of, which is a blessing. I am thankful for that and I am pretty sure she is too! She was kind enough to remind me that we will have a baby in our family in 194 days, or 27 weeks, or 4,656 hours, or 279,360 minutes, or, get ready...16,761,600 seconds. That is, if all goes according to plan. 

Notice the facial features and it looks like the baby is sucking its thumb.

You can see the arms and legs a little better in this one.

12 WEEKS

Lacy hit the 12 week mark today and she is nearly out of the first trimester, for this we are thankful. The nausea and fatigue has picked up slightly since my last post, but we think it could be a lot worse. We have heard other stories of mothers at this stage that make Lacy’s journey look like a walk in the park….. so far. She has also been able to exercise by walking and her appetite seems to be normal.

So what is going on with the baby these days? The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. The baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, toes will curl, eye muscles will clench, and the mouth will make sucking movements. They say, if I were to prod Lacy’s abdomen, the baby would squirm in response, although we wouldn’t be able to feel it. The intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into the abdominal cavity, and the kidneys will begin excreting urine into the bladder.

Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in the baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His/her face looks unquestionably human: The eyes have moved from the sides to the front of the head, and the ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, the baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.


Below is a picture of the baby at 12 weeks. I got the picture from www.babycenter.com, which is where I get a lot of this information.

We have an ultrasound scheduled for Thursday 9/9, so we will get another picture of the baby. I have posted a picture of each of the first 2 ultrasounds as well. They are fun to compare and we are excited to see how much the baby has grown the last four weeks.

Six Weeks

You can barely see the baby on the lining of the uterus wall. It is the little white circle in the southeast part of the bigger black blob in the top left of the picture. Don't you love my medical terminology?

8 Weeks

The baby is a little easier to see this time, just to the left of the arrow drawn on the screen. Big difference in only two weeks time.

In other news, I have hit a wall with my half marathon training. I enjoy the challenge, but have lost some of the desire I once had when I decided to start training. The fact that I do not enjoy running in the slightest also plays a big part in my lack of desire. I have stuck to my schedule 100% except for shortening an eight mile run to a four mile run this past weekend. After all it was Labor Day weekend, no need to kill myself by running to much right? Not exactly the best move considering the half marathon is in 19 days and my longest run is seven miles so far. 13.1 miles seems like a stretch at this point in the game, but I am not giving up yet. I wish I would have decided to do this earlier than 7 weeks out, but I guess that is part of the challenge. The good news is my body feels pretty good considering the constant pounding it has taken as I run at least three days a week. The only problem is a few blisters on my toes, which are nothing compared to the blisters I was getting in the very beginning. The cooler weather lately has also been nice and you can tell fall is right around the corner.