This journey has been so amazing! There have been so many firsts for all of us and so many special moments and memories made! Today, was no different!
Pixie's parents (and big sister) made the trip down to Normal today for my OB appointment. They made it from door to door in 1.5 hours! (We may need to do a few more trial runs for D-Day!) The timing was great, so note to self, Friday morning at 8:30 would be an okay time for traffic to go into labor! :)
First stop was the OB office where we had the mid-pregnancy anatomy scan done. This is a thorough ultrasound that involves measurements of bones to check the growth of baby, and a check on the heart, brain, and major organs to make sure they are developing correctly as well. Everything looked great! Baby weighs one pound and is measuring a few days ahead of schedule. I personally think she had a big growth spurt this past week as my stomach has become more firm and feels like it is stretching, plus the numbers on the scale went up :)
As I said, this experience has been so cool. One of the best things about the journey to parenthood is getting a peak at your little one. E and P had their eyes glued to the screen. I had the pleasure of watching their reaction! It was so overwhelming. You can just feel the love that these two parents have for the little one inside me that they have yet to meet. I get emotional thinking about it and of course I had tears flowing! Luckily I don't think they took their eyes off the screen so they didn't notice me!
Technology has come a long way since even Tucker was born 4 years ago. 4D is very popular so the tech was able to 'flip' the machine so that we could see her move in 4D as well. Here are some 3D pictures of her. She kept her hand over her face the entire time. What a stinker! It's like she was saying "no pictures, no pictures!"
You can see her nose in the middle and her mouth and chin. The squiggles in the middle are her fingers!
She was tucked in tight and did not want to give in to move her hand. We tried so many times!
I love this one! Her mouth was opening and closing! You can see her little tongue in there and nose in the middle. Again, the hand up!!
After the sonogram, we met with the Nurse Practitioner at the office because my OB was out. She said the scan looked great and asked if we had any questions. I said I was feeling good with no issues so we were sent on our way! I actually go back in 2 weeks to see the OB again (I saw her 2 weeks ago and visit every 4 weeks with her until the 3rd trimester, then I will go more frequently!)
Next stop was the hospital for a tour. (Ok we may have diverted to Steak N' Shake for a shake first!)
We arranged a private tour since our scenario is a little different than most! The nurse was awesome and answered all of our questions! The hospital is so surrogate friendly too which is amazing (Some hospitals won't even let surrogates deliver there. Usually due to religious views) Pixie's family will get their own hospital room when we check in for delivery and baby will room in with them. Our hospital is great and has huge rooms so they will have plenty of space to spread out.
We then went down to registration to get baby registered. I am registered as a patient already, and usually the baby just gets attached to my file at birth. Well this is different and Baby needs her OWN file because she is in no way attached to me (ok except she literally is right now!) So basically, I will deliver and then it is already on record that she is E and P's baby. In addition, the lawyers have already filed all of the necessary paperwork so that E and P go on her birth certificate as parents!
Big sister waiting to check on little sis!
Hospital tour
What a big day we had! I am exhausted but it was so good to see them and catch up. And of course it is always wonderful to hear and SEE that Pixie is growing and getting stronger! 18.5 more weeks is the goal to keep her in! Keep those prayers coming! She still has a lot of growing to do!
Sending love to you all!
