Joy!

I want to shout with joy! In fact, I have been all morning. I'm listening to a Christmas song being played on the cello on public radio, it's Christmas Eve, and we have a baby on the way!

This past week, I've been able to feel him move more and more. It's almost like a dream when I feel him wiggle. That's my boy! I thank God for him already!

I think that's all I have to write about for now. It's Christmas Eve! I'm going to enjoy my day.

Luke "no middle name" Dominguez

Hello and Merry Christmas!  Just a quick update on our baby, Luke no middle name Dominguez.  Any suggestions for a middle name?  That has been the hardest part!!!  Well, he is getting bigger and I now have an official "baby bump".  He is also a kicker.  He kicks a lot and is really active.  This morning I am pretty sure I felt an elbow.  It was crazy because it was right there just kind of sticking out and I could feel it really defined.  He also has a pattern, now.  He likes to move a lot first thing in the morning and then after I eat, and again around 7 in the evening.  We have another appointment coming up on January 9th, with another ultrasound, so hopefully we can get some good pictures.  Sleeping is becoming more of a challenge because he likes to move a lot, forcing me to move around a lot to get comfortable, luckily for me, I sleep on my side normally so I haven't had to drastically change anything too much.  Even Lorenzo has gotten to feel him kick.  It feels like he's doing summer salts in there :)  Still no crazy cravings, just things like apples, still, and pizza.  Lately its been Dion's pizza.  We have been going to a small group, too and two of the couples there announced they are pregnant and due in July about a week apart from each other which is really exciting to have people our age to share it with. Lots going on.  Anyways just a quick update, will write more after the appointment in January!

New Ultrasound Images

Tomorrow, Lindsey will be 22 weeks pregnant with Luke. According to my weekly email from babycenter.com, he is about 11 inches long and he weighs almost a pound. The email is also telling me that all of his facial features, including his eyelids, eyebrows and lips are starting to become more distinct.

I can't wait to see this little guy! Is he going to have fair skin like his mom, dark skin like me, or a mix of the two? Will he have brown eyes, or blue, maybe green? More than likely he'll have brown. I remember my genes lesson from back in high school. The blue eye gene that Lindsey carries, is two recessive genes. My brown eye gene is either one recessive blue and a dominant brown, or just two dominant browns. If I carry two dominant browns, then our baby will have brown eyes and carry a recessive blue. But if I carry a recessive blue, then there is a chance that he'll have blue eyes. My dad tells me that his grandfather had blue eyes. So ya never know. Whatever color Luke's eyes are will be perfect. What color of hair will he have? Will it be black like mine, or will he have lighter hair like Lindsey's? Will he have curly hair? I'm  thinking there's a good chance of him having curly hair. Will he have my nose, or Lindsey's nose? Will he have my ears or Lindsey's ears? Will he be left handed like Lindsey, or right handed like me? I hope he's left handed. I just want him to be a healthy baby. That is my prayer. Everything else will be a surprise, and it will be perfect. He's my son and I'm already excited to see his little face. These ultrasound photos are really neat, but I'm sure it's not even close to what we'll experience as parents when we see him in person. I'm excited. I hope I'm a good dad.

Here are the ultrasound images from our last appointment. He looks a bit cranky in some of them.

random 20 week appt

We had our 20 week ultrasound last Friday.  Everything seems to be going well, his heart rate was 154 bpm which is good and I got a shot that hurt for whooping cough, but good thing because everyone at work is really sick.  We got some pretty good pictures of Luke at this last visit, too.  There is one that's really funny where he looks like he's pouting and crossing his arms.  Zo will scan them and put them up soon.  So far everything is looking great except that I need to gain more weight.  I'm working on it, I eat everything but for whatever reason it's taking me a long time.  Anyways more to come later.

Luke.

So Lorenzo and I found out we're having a son and we decided on naming him Luke, after much debate.  Its a name we both really like, and we don;t know any Luke (s) so we don't have any name/face associations with it.  No middle name yet, we're still working on it.  We have an ultrasound next Friday morning at our midwife clinic and i'm excited see how much he's grown already!  The nurse told us tat he will be tall, at the lat ultrasound his spine was already really long.....I don't know how I feel about that, I hope he's not HUGE lol.  I have started to feel him move a little inside my stomach, it's an odd feeling.  He usually moves after I eat or when I drink something cold.  He's the most active at night and early in the morning around 5am when i'm still in bed.  Zo hasn't been able to feel it yet but soon he'll be able to.  I'm starting to show a little too.  I still look like maybe I just drink a lot of beer or something but if I wear some of my normal clothes, I have a baby bulge.  Nothing spectacular, but its there.  It's big enough to cause me a little comical problem when I was trying on 80s prom dresses for a birthday party i'm going to this weekend.  Those 80s dresses aren't mad for pregnant people, lol, back to the drawing board until I come up with something...

We Found Out the Sex of the Baby (85% sure)

As I am typing this right now, I am also scanning out ultra sound images from August 24, 2011 and October 17, 2011. I really can't tell you what the images are saying from August. When the ultrasound was happening we could see a flickering. That was the heartbeat. That was still exciting. It was also just exciting to see the bit of mass on a screen.

This most recent ultrasound, the one we had yesterday, was especially exciting because we were able to find out the sex of the baby. My mom and dad were there and so were Lindsey's parents. They prepared Lindsey while Steve, my parents and I just chatted away in the lobby. Finally after 15 minutes or so they called us back. I walked in first and you could see on the screen images--of exactly what, I couldn't tell you. Then the nurse began to point things out to us and began to explain what she was looking for. It was amazing to see our little baby on that screen! He was moving like crazy. Yes, I said "he". The nurse was able to tell that it's a boy. At least she's 85% sure of that. We were all confused because at first she said it was a girl. Then, oh wait a minute. Yup, it's a boy. She was able to get a measurement of the baby's heartbeat, which is healthy, and we were able to tell the sex.

We sure are proud parents-to-be... To celebrate, we went to Sizzler after. It was fun to just hang out with all the parents and Lindsey. What a great night.

As promised, I finally got my scanner to work. Here are the images.

Random food, happenings and life!

Today I had another appointment after a week of excitement.  We went to Denver to see our friends who were expecting a baby (Avery, a girl) and Jenna was due on Sunday.  Instead, she had it last night so we are really excited for them:)  Then today, I went in for an appointment and we got to hear the heartbeat again, only this time it was louder, stronger, more pronounced!  We have a ultrasound at Care Net on Monday night to hopefully find out the sex of the baby (i'll be 16 weeks next Tuesday). I have my suspicions its a girl but who knows, I could be waaay off, lol.  So far I still haven't had any really odd cravings, but I do have specific cravings now.  These consist of cheese slices and either apples or nectarine slices.  That's the strongest craving of all, and cheesy things in general like grilled cheese, shells and cheese, anything cheese.  Fruit, also, which s funny because i'm not usually a big fruit eater.  Also anything sweet.  I may have stopped at McDonald's (I know, I know, i'm ashamed, too!) for a hot fudge sundae....double fudge....well worth the 1.50 and drive thru stop.  In Denver I might have cheated but I had a decaf latte or two....or three the whole week we were there, which was nice, because the Doctor said I could have up to two small cups of regular coffee a day, but I chose not to have any up until a week ago for vacation, even so, I still will only drink decaf and only once in a while.  Well, that's it for now, Hopefully we can determine the sex on Monday!!!

Here is a picture further down of a baby at 15 weeks, which is what I am right now :)

Micro Brews (Root Beer, that is...)

Since I am preggers and no longer able to have a nice cold drink I have become quite the consumer of micro batch root beer and ginger ale.  Most breweries carry their own and if it were not for my underlying condition, I would probably never have really tried them.  I'm kind of getting into it!  My two favorites from Sunflower Market are Reeds Extra Ginger Ginger Ale and Virgil's Micro Root beer. 

 I tried a few others including an Agave (Oogave Natural Root Beer) which was ok, but not my fave.  I want to try more of the natural micro batch root beers, sasparilas and cream sodas and since we will be in Denver next week, I might search their breweries for a new one. In Albuquerque I would have to say that the winner of the best micro-batch root beer is Il Vicino.

 It has an amazing flavor!  I wish Marble brewery which is literally a hop step and jump from our front door would invest in some Micro soda of some-kind.  Bad Ass Brewery has a root beer that isn't bad either but so far, Il Vicino has my vote.  Just a random blog about a new hobby brought about by the kid in my uterus, lol.  Thanks, kid. 

 

Eating Out...

Crazy crazy pregnancy hormones!  They, whoever "they" are, are right when they say that your hormones are crazy during pregnancy...I randomly started crying last night for no apparent reason.  Sometimes it's a little sometimes I cry for a while and I don't even know why.  THEN there's the food issues.  Morning sickness has kind of been going away in the morning (except for today, sadly) and showing up around dinner time.  This presents a problem when Lorenzo decides to do something sweet and take me to Zio's Friday night for dinner.  I have been craving Italian bread and dipping oil, you know olive oil with all the spices in it?  I have been craving it for weeks!  So Zo takes me to Zio's which is far, far away on the west-side and we get there, we order manicotti to share and it comes and all of the sudden, I feel sick to my stomach and can't eat it.  We had the waiter (nice guy) box it up and I felt like a jerk, so I told him I was pregnant and that I just got nauseated.  Luckily he understood because I guess his lady just had a baby.  I still felt bad. Then on Saturday we went to the salsa fiesta in Old Town and stopped at Little Anita's, a really good New Mexican restaurant to eat...it happened again.  I was hungry, I ordered, food came and BAM! I had to box it up.  I'm hoping this is just a passing trend.  I've been getting hungry for grilled cheese around 9pm every night.  Zo has been a good sport and makes it for me since I like the way he makes it better, but it would be nice if I could eat dinner at dinner time, lol.   I will be 13 weeks tomorrow and the baby is the size of a peach or a nutter butter cookie (one website actually said that...) 

 It can put its thumb in its mouth and move its arms and legs as well as make jerky motions in the womb, although I still don't feel it.  We have an appointment on October 17th to find out the sex of the baby, so i'm excited.  Oh, it also has vocal chords this week.  Crazy.  The next few weeks will be nuts, as we are going to Denver next Wednesday for a week to be with Mike and Jenna while they hopefully have their baby, then we have out appt. when we get back to find out the sex.  I will try and keep the blog posted with more news when we find out :)

Good Parents

There are people that should not have children....And there are people who are amazing parents.  Today I had lunch with two of my favorite parents, Tamara and Dan.  Their little boy, Taylor is 2 and I can already see their parenting making such a positive person out of their little boy.  I hope I can be a good parent.  Tamara inspires me because she was young when she became a mom, but she did it right.  I hope I will be a good parent.  The baby is officially a fetus, now.  Twelve weeks and counting yesterday.   Apparently it has fingernails and is growing a lot this week.  I can't wait to find out who this little person is, already! 

:)

Audible Heartbeat

Today was a good day! We got hear our baby's heartbeat. First we saw our little baby's heartbeat on an ultrasound screen. Today our (new) midwife used Doppler to amplify the heartbeat in a speaker. I'm not sure if it's the same Doppler that will show us storms on a weather map or not.  Well, I know it's the the exact same machine, but it has the same name so I'm just wondering why they have the same name. The fun thing was that we heard the heartbeat. It made me feel so joyful, almost to the point of tears.  There's a tiny human in Lindsey's womb! This little tiny human doesn't know it yet, but I'm its father! What a huge responsibility I have! I hope I am a good father. I'm just imagining all the fun things we're going to do. It makes me feel good. That's all for now.

On a different topic, I was able to get my scanner's software installed in wine for Ubunu, but it's not working properly. I'll find a way to get the ultrasound photos uploaded soon, I promise.

Heartbeats.

HEARTBEATS!!!

Today we had another appointment at the midwife clinic.  I had a physical and got a flu shot, but the most exciting part is that we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time! It was really fast and at one point, you could heard it overlapping with my heartbeat.  It's one thing to see it, but to hear it made me feel really amazed!  This is the real deal! The midwife (Abby) said that it sounded healthy and after my physical said that everything was going well so far.  Lorenzo and I opted out of getting the genetic pre-screen testing.  Zo had a good question, asking if they caught something in the testing, would it be able to be treated In-utero?  They said no and we decided that no matter what we will love our baby and we would rather just no do the testing unless they think there may e something wrong, so for now, we are holding off.  Our next appointment is October 14th, after we get home from Denver and we will be able to tell the sex of the baby in late October which is sooner than I thought!!  Next month is going to be busy and exciting!

My little......Lime!

Well.....It's not a raspberry anymore, it's about the size of a small lime this week!

Funny how we always compare babies to fruit, huh?  Nonetheless, I feel pregnant.  The morning sickness is getting a little less and a little better every day so I can't complain about that. What do I know about this kid so far?  Well, it waved at me during my first ultrasound and I have another one coming up on Friday, so I'm hoping this time I can actually hear the heartbeat (last time I got to see it flutter!).  This little raspberry craves random things like Colby Jack cheese slices on top of Apple and nectarine slices, oh and watermelon.  At the beginning of my pregnancy I craved Chili rellenos but now, even thinking about them makes me want to throw up.  I have a very strange feeling that the little raspberry might just be a girl, but at this point its only speculation.  We painted our nursery and I think I am going to try and get owl things to decorate it.  I don't think I believe in themes, but owls are cool and there's some tasteful owl stuff that I can keep around when we are done having a nursery, too.  My pants are a little tighter, my tummy just looks like i'm hiding a small pony keg under my shirt, but so far, everything is good.  I'm excited for the ultrasound on Friday.

9 Weeks

Lindsey is 9 weeks pregnant. We have 217 days to go until our little baby comes! I feel so blessed. I'm just praying now that the rest of the pregnancy is a healthy one. Lindsey hasn't been feeling very good lately... I know these symptoms we be gone soon. Lindsey has also had some heartburn, some people say this means that the baby will have lots of hair. We'll see. 

Cravings, Ultrasound Photos

I need to get my scanner set up so that I can scan all of the ultrasound photos we have. I'll have to install the Cannon Canoscan software in Wine. Dang Linux, they make everything so complicated.

Lindsey is not really craving anything specific. At first she was craving chile rellenos, but now those just make her nauseous. Breadsticks are a big craving for her along with nectarines and apples.

It seems like her tummy is getting a little bulge. Right now the baby is about an inch big. We have another appointment in about three weeks. I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

My Little Raspberry

Today was an exciting day! I was able to see our little baby's heartbeat. It was a faint little flicker on a black and white screen, but it was there. We had the ultrasound at Lindsey's mom's work, Carenet.

So this is the first entry of hopefully many.

I'm at work now and there are many distractions. I'll write much more...