It's a BOY!

Well I'm sure most all of you already know thanks to facebook, but we found out today that we're having a baby boy! It was very exciting to see the baby again, especially now that he actually looks like a baby. He is currently head down and at least at the appointment, his legs were crossed as if he were trying to hide his little package though they were apparently able to get enough of a view to be able to tell that he is, indeed, a he. The doctor and ultrasound tech said that everything was looking good and that according to the measurements taken today they'd estimate 12/24 as the due date and that he's weighing about 1 pound 12 ounces.

Now we're going to start on the "nursery" and start picking up more things for our little boy as well as start discussing names! Feel free to leave your suggestions for names..

Well, not much more as far as news goes, but here are some ultrasound pictures (which are also on Facebook).

Hand up on the forehead

Profile shot

Front view of the face

That's his little fist punching me

Thumb-sucking

Fist by the mouth

His little leg on top with the foot on the left

24 weeks!

This past week has been a very eventful week! We ordered the first thing for the nursery, got some baby clothes, bought a very nice Pack N Play which will be our bassinet for the first several months, and I even had a doctor's appointment.

It's kind of funny, it was my birthday last week, but basically all of the gifts I received had something to do with baby. I'm already beginning to see how the little one will become the ruler of our worlds :). Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all about getting baby things as gifts seeing as they are what I asked for - even used the gift card that I got for an adorable swing for the nursery! I'm definitely excited to do even more with the nursery space!

The doctor's appointment went well. I was told that I shouldn't have any problems with a normal delivery despite my size which is always nice to hear. My fundal height is right on par with my due date and baby's heart sounded nice and strong, beating at a nice 160bpm (still possibly indicating girl). Although I had some issues in the beginning with eating and my weight dropped about 3-4 pounds, that's certainly not the case anymore - the doctor was very satisfied with my weight gain. We're working on the whole sonogram situation and should have that all settled soon I hope!!

On another note, according to the books that I've been reading, baby would have about a 50% chance of survival if he or she were to be born now. Considering I'm still in the second trimester and have almost 4 months to go, that is absolutely amazing to me!

It's been a couple weeks, so here is the belly photo!

24 Weeks

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 :)!

18.5 weeks and hungry all the time!

Now we have just over two weeks until my doctor's appointment and luckily, time seems to be moving fast enough. We're both excited to learn more about having a baby in Finland as well as to hear the baby's heartbeat. If I read correctly, ultrasounds are not performed onsite, but we'll have to see. Either way, you can bet that we'll insist on an ultrasound (and I doubt they'll disagree since it's been over 12 weeks since the last one).

This past week, I've really been able to feel the baby every now and again. David even got to feel the baby kicking which was really exciting for the both of us. My appetite has grown like crazy and I now feel the need to eat almost constantly. Toast with strawberry jam (made by my wonderful husband) has become a daily evening snack for me :). My food cravings are very specific and unfortunately as of right now, the few things that I'm craving are unavailable here in Finland. C'mon Finns, why don't you have shaved ice?!

Well, not much else to update on, but here's a picture of the baby bump - sorry my hand is kind of in the way, but my shirt wasn't cooperating with me wanting to show off my belly.

Let the countdown begin!

Well, as some of you know, people here in Finland like to take a long vacation (at least 2 weeks, but usually a whole month) during the summer. All companies and such, yes, even McDonalds, give their employees a long summer holiday which is awesome when you get to take it, but unfortunately it can also be a huge inconvenience. Since I wasn't in the computer system at the maternity clinic this week, I won't be able to go until August 12th because the nurse is on her holiday now until 8/11. I have an appointment set for 9:45am on the 12th though, so needless to say, we are both counting down the days. By then I should not only be in the system, but we should have our KELA cards so there won't be any issues once I get there. It seems like an eternity away (especially when following Lisa and all of her appointments and ultrasounds - thanks, Lisa :p), but we will manage.

I'm still working on David, hoping he'll come around on finding out the sex of our little baby. Since our place is only a one bedroom, the baby will have a small nursery corner in our room. I'm kind of sad that we won't get to decorate a whole nursery since that was something I had really looked forward too, but we'll work with what we have and make the best of it! Hopefully some generous co-worker of David's will have some baby furniture that they are willing to hand down to us at least temporarily because there's just no way we're going to afford buying our own new set. Even if we could, we'd have to part with it when we left to come back to the states, so it just isn't worth it.

We're also not sure how we're going to work a baby registry for a few reasons (see below), so any suggestions are welcome. It is highly unlikely that either of us will be back in the states before the baby is born since flights are expensive and quite long, especially by yourself. So.. our reasons..

1. Shipping to Finland from the states is quite ridiculous price-wise.
2. The one baby store we know of here doesn't have online shopping, so that's not an option.
3. We have to pay customs, taxes, duties, etc. on anything that we receive here (and those can be pricey).

So, again, any suggestions are welcome... VERY welcome.

I think David and I have decided on a belly picture every two weeks unless my belly decides to really pop out overnight, so you have to wait another week for that, though I promise that my belly hasn't gotten much bigger. That said, I am having problems sleeping as I just can't stay comfortable in any position for long. Baby has also decided the past couple of nights to get really active before bed and I can feel him/her moving around (I think :p). At this stage, it is hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure it is the baby moving, which is very exciting! I just wish baby would decide to play around during the day, not when I'm trying to sleep :).

Hope everything is well with everyone back in the states!

Getting settled in!

On Monday we moved into our apartment which was great after trying to live in a hotel with only a small fridge and no microwave for almost a week. One of the first things we did was go to the grocery store and get some basics. Trying to figure out what things are is kind of fun, but can also be extremely annoying when you are looking for something in particular. Luckily, most everyone here speaks English so it isn't too hard to find someone to help. After spending most of the week without internet, we got our modem today and now have internet. Living without internet was extremely difficult since it is our only connection to our friends and family so we are very happy to have it up and running!

As far as the pregnancy goes, we applied for our KELA cards today, which is what I need in order to get to the doctor here. Hopefully we'll hear back on that soon as I would really like to hear the baby's heartbeat and get another ultrasound! We can't believe that it has already been 10 weeks since the last ultrasound and are very anxious to see our little baby again! David still says he doesn't want to know what we are having, but I most definitely want to know if it's a little boy or girl, so we're working through that. Hopefully he'll just change his mind and then everything will work out from there since there's absolutely no way I'm changing my mind :).

Hope you all enjoyed the belly picture - sometimes when I just catch a quick glimpse of myself in a mirror I'm surprised at how big my belly has gotten. I've decided that my old undershirts (camis) are just too tight and have moved on to my maternity tank tops which are much more comfortable as they aren't extremely tight. My jeans still fit for the most part as they were pretty low-rise in the first place, but I'm thinking it won't be long before I have to pick up a pair of maternity jeans as well (which I should have picked up back in the US where they aren't quite as expensive).

The next ultrasound could possibly show us whether it's a boy or a girl (if we decide to find out), so what does everyone think - will it be a boy or a girl??

16 Weeks Belly Picture!

So, here's the long-awaited belly photo! This was taken today, which makes me exactly 16 weeks pregnant based on my first ultrasound that was now 10 weeks ago. More on that in the full blog post.