20 Weeks! Halfway There!

It's hard to believe that we are already at 20 weeks. The halfway point! It's been an exciting few weeks. About a week ago, I started to feel the slightest flutters of the baby moving. At first, I wasn't sure what I was feeling, but gradually they have become more distinct, and now I'm sure that I'm feeling her kicking and moving around in there. It's truly an amazing thing! Today she was more active than I've noticed her before, so I'm sure it will just keep getting stronger. When we had our ultrasound at 16 weeks, a cyst was seen on our baby's brain. The cyst was not in the brain matter itself, but in an area called the choriod plexus, which controls cerebralspinal fluid in the brain. It's a fairly common finding in pregnancy, and most of the time they are completely benign and considered a "normal human variant." They have no effect on the baby's cognitive development at all, but in some rare cases, it has been linked to a specific genetic condition. Our OB was not concerned, because no other problems were seen on ultrasound (the genetic condition has clear markers that would be picked up easily on ultrasound other than the cyst), but Zack and I decided that for our peace of mind, we wanted a referral for a level 2 ultrasound. We saw a perinatologist who looked the baby over from head to toe, and declared that she was completely healthy. On top of that, the cyst that was seen two weeks before was GONE! No trace of it at all! This was certainly an answer to prayer and we took this as further comfort that she really is ok. Besides our peace of mind, the scan also offered us a new look at our baby: 3D ultrasound. That technology is truly incredible! Those are the pictures posted below - really fascinating! Notice the one of her profile with her open hand to her face- the ultrasound tech said she was "blowing us a kiss" - too cute! Zack and I went to Babies R Us today just to look around for fun and begin looking at baby furniture. Wow, is there a lot of stuff out there for babies! Zack picked out a really sweet book to read to the baby each night while we wait for her to get here! Zack wants to make sure that she is familiar with her daddy's voice like she will be her mommy's! We keeping waiting with anticipation for our new little one to arrive!