Weekly update - Special Birthday Edition :)

It's hard to believe that on this day next year we will have a little baby crawling around! This next year is sure to be full of lots of surprises, both good and bad, as well as lots of excitement surrounding this new life that will be added to our family! Perhaps next year I'll get some nice slobbery kisses for my birthday - been missing those slobbery puppy kisses, so can only imagine that slobbery baby kisses will be better (sorry, Kilu and Gina :p).

Baby has been getting more and more active which is great fun for both David and me. We both love to feel baby moving around and guess what part of the body we are feeling. Music time has also begun in the Rhodes "house" and baby really seems to enjoy it. I will usually play some nice relaxing piano music, sometimes some nice classical music, but most every time the music is over I feel a couple nice strong kicks from baby as if to tell me that he or she wants more. It's quite cute and it is amazing how responsive a baby in the womb at only 23 weeks is! Oh, the miracle of life.

Well, time to go celebrate my birthday with my amazing husband who just made me breakfast :D.

For fun, here's a few baby photos of myself.. can't wait to see what our little one looks like!

Shortly After Birth :)

One Week Old

6 Weeks

7 Weeks

Our little karate kid

I think baby has found a "fun" game to play with me. No matter if I have been laying down for an hour before actually falling asleep, baby has found that right before I fall asleep if he/she kicks that I will instantly wake up. Feeling baby moving is so amazing and I love it, so if I'm feeling kicks or movements, there's just no way that I'm going to sleep :). I'd say that this happens at least every other night. Otherwise, baby seems to be becoming more and more active all the time. David's hand seems to calm the baby down, but mine sure has no influence on the baby whatsoever! I love watching David's face when he gets to feel the baby.. I can't wait to see him with the baby once it's here!

There's really not much else in news.. I'm still extremely excited to find out if we'll be having a little boy or girl at some point. We've started looking at all sorts of baby gear and I think that's making us more anxious to have this little baby in about 4 months. Oi, I can't believe there's still so long to go!

My belly feels like it's filling out, though I don't think it shows in pictures (you can judge for yourself). Here's the 22 week photo..

From super happy to super frustrated

Today was the much anticipated doctor's appointment! We'll start with the good news.. We did get to hear baby's heartbeat which was recorded as 150+. That apparently suggests that it could be a girl, but it is far from 100% accurate. From what the nurse could tell, baby is very active and healthy which is the most important thing! My iron count was slightly low, so back on the iron supplement I go, but everything else was fine with me as well!

Now for the frustrating stuff. Women here apparently get two ultrasounds, which is all fine and dandy with me, but seeing as I missed both of them (one is early on and the other is just before 20 weeks), I don't get to have one. This is frustrating for two reasons... 1. If they had let me go a month ago, I would have been sent for an ultrasound. The nurse that I saw today was far from the only nurse there, so there had to of been one available before today and we still don't have our Kela cards, but they saw me anyways. Ugh.. I don't get it. 2. Back in the good ol' states, they don't have set deadlines where if you don't get an ultrasound you simply miss out and don't get to have one. You'd think that since the only ultrasound information I have is from when I was 6 weeks pregnant they'd want to do one anyways. My paperwork from my doctor in the states is useless in every other aspect and every other test (blood, urine, etc.) has to be redone here (which I'm obviously not amused about as I hate to give blood), so one would think that an ultrasound would be part of that.

I do have the option of going to a private clinic and getting an ultrasound done there and paying out of pocket, but that isn't cheap and apparently I'd have to have an "internal exam" as well which would only add to the cost. I'm not quite sure why I'd have to have the internal exam just so I could get an ultrasound, but who knows.

All of this was topped with a very clinical, cold, unwelcoming environment and a nurse that had a hard time communicating with us and thus I'd need a translator at every appointment. So all in all, I'm happy that baby seems healthy and everything seems to be progressing normally, but really frustrated with the whole Finnish healthcare system (at least the maternity side of it).

Oh, and David finally gave in to finding out the sex of the baby (Yay!), so the whole no ultrasound thing was an even bigger disappointment to me.

Halfway mark!

Well, only one week to go until we finally get to go to the doctor! We're both excited to say the least. At least it isn't like it was in the beginning when I had no belly and couldn't feel the baby move and wanted to take a pregnancy test just to make sure I was still pregnant. Just a few days ago I really started to feel the baby and now there are times when I can just feel where the baby is (and what he or she is laying on :p). Feeling the baby move and seeing my belly grow helps me to realize that everything is probably fine, but there is still nothing that can compare to hearing the heartbeat or seeing baby on the ultrasound monitor.

On Thursday, at least according to my first and only ultrasound, marked 20 weeks, so 20 weeks (or so) to go until baby is here! We are looking forward to finally going to the baby store here sometime soon and getting some of our first "nursery" items. I finally broke down and spent some money to get a pair of maternity jeans to go with the couple of maternity tops that I brought and I'm so happy that I did. That belly band is really quite nice as far as jeans go, but there's still nothing that compares to wearing a nice, comfortable, loose dress! Within the next couple of weeks a package should be arriving with some more maternity clothes (Thanks, Mom! <3) and I couldn't be more excited.. great early birthday present to be sure!

Well, here are the 20 week belly photos - I made David get into one of them this time :)!