it's a....

GIRL! The ultrasound tech said everything looks great - she's measuring at 21 weeks, which I am. My belly is also measuring at 21 weeks. Only problem seems to be that I have a low-lying placenta, which the doctor wants to check out with another ultrasound at 28 weeks. Since 90% of low-lying placentas correct themselves with the growth of the uterus, I've decided not to worry unless there's something to worry about.

The whole experience is a lot to take in. I think the hub and I just stared at the monitor with mouths wide open. If the tech told me I drooled a little, I would have believed her. The hands, the legs, the fingers, the little feet, the stomach, the kidneys, the brain, the little heart and its four chambers...all so amazing. We even saw her (I am still getting used to pronouns) open and close her mouth. Crazy.

Here is the face (which the hub and I think looks a little skeletor-ish):





And a beautiful profile picture:



Baby B's right eye in this one kind of creeps me out, and I don't know if it's just reflection or distortion or what:



The hub checking out the ultrasound photos and letting it all sink in:

the 21st week

Tomorrow morning, 7:30 a.m. That is when the hub and I will finally get to see the baby is all its black and white grainy glory! I am ready to see something beyond the peanut-shaped blob we saw 14 weeks ago. I want to know everything is where it should be, that the baby is healthy and developed properly. And of course I want to know the gender!

Being 21 weeks puts me right across the mid-way point of the pregnancy. I haven't really thought too much about it, mainly because it hasn't really affected me physically. I mean, I can nap now like nobody's business, but I don't feel too "off" from how I usually feel. I am ready to nest, though. I am ready to put together the room, shop for the last few items needed, and enjoy being off work when my feet are swollen beyond belief in the hot summer.

So here are some pictures of me at 21 weeks, 1 day...

the bags have arrived

The hub called to check on the bag status, and US Air claimed they were found, handed over to a delivery service, and were on the way to us! Of course, two and a half hours later, with no info, we called back and found out it was all a lie and the bags were at Yeager airport in Charleston. I immediately got in the car to go get them and retrieve my camera! So, here are the house pictures!

Here is the front and rock detail. It will be landscaped by the time we close.





You walk into the living room, which has a giant window out front and a fireplace. The fireplace even has a battery back-up in case the electricity goes out! The living room is open to the kitchen and dining area at the back of the house.









The backyard needs a little time to grow in good grass, but we're happy it's sodded and fenced. Sadie will love it!



The two bedrooms and guest bathroom are to the left of the living room, through the archway. Love the huge closets!





Here's Baby B's room...



And the hallway linen closet - the cabinets are one of my favorite things about the house.



The master bedroom is to the right of the living room, past the laundry room. Here is the room, the walk-in closet, and the bathroom (with the hub being silly).







All the fixtures are oil-rubbed bronze.



We close April 29th. And our house in WV sold this week, so we're on our way to Oklahoma City!

the getting home part

Last Tuesday the hub and I left to go to Oklahoma City to find a house, since we will soon be transferred there for the hub's job. Needless to say, I was in a horrible mood since the ultrasound was rescheduled for April 8th and I now had to wait another 9 days. But, the flights out to Oklahoma City were great, and the hotel was beautiful. Love our real estate agent Amy, who is so patient and lets me and the hub fly with our opinions. Come Wednesday, we had found the perfect house - 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, big fenced backyard, brick exterior, and brand-spanking new! Now, I'd like to be posting pictures of this house. But I can't. And that's where the story gets interesting. See, the camera is in my luggage, which is LOST.

Here's how that goes. Our flight back was Saturday morning at 11:05 a.m. We were flying from Oklahoma City, to Memphis, to Cincinnati, to Charleston. Come to find out the plane has mechanical issues and will be here by 12:30 p.m. But the hub and I do the mental math - our flight from Memphis to Cincinnati leaves at 1:35 p.m. so we will miss it. We, like everyone else, get into line. The frazzled lady from Northwest (who announces she doesn't have clearance to help us at all) tells us all to call the 1-800 number for NW to get new flights. The hub does, and luckily we are re-routed from Memphis to Atlanta to Charleston. We of course have now stepped out of line and figure out we have to get back in because our bags are routed the original way. We give up on the line, leave the secured area, and go to the Northwest ticket counter, where we proceed to teach this woman her job. Seriously, they can't get a laid-off MBA in here to clean this mess up? She is literally flipping through the manual with a lost expression - something I likened to flipping through the Yellow Pages when you forget what you were looking up in the first place. We explain that our bags need to be re-routed because once they get to Memphis, the original flight will have already left. She does not understand us in the least. She tells us [incorrectly] that because Charleston is the "final destination" the high-as-a-kite useless votech baggage handlers will somehow magically think to look up our itineraries and re-route the bags themselves. No dice, and we're not getting anywhere with her, so we go back through security (where I am forced to throw away the $3 water I just bought) and we make the NW agent deal with it.

Come 12:55 p.m., the hub and I are settled in on the flight to Memphis, ready to catch the flight to Atlanta, then on to Charleston. Yes, we would now be delayed 4 hours, but at least everything was fixed, right? WRONG! We go to the Atlanta terminal, where we are blown off by the Delta reps, who say it is a NW problem and they won't print our boarding passes. So, we go through the Memphis airport (which reeks of urine and everyone who is employed sits around watching the terminal tvs), and find the only NW reps in the airport. Now, looking back I think these ladies may have been sent down in our time of need. Because no one else cared. They check on the flight to Atlanta, and come to find out that the flight is full. Not only is it full, it was always full, meaning when customer service re-routed us 4 hours previously, they put us on a flight that had no seats available. We are screwed. They find us another flight, which we have to take because we're running out of options at this point. We spend the next 3 hours trying to get the boarding passes printed, which everyone claims isn't their job. I think at that point, after 9 hours of being in airports, I was the closest I'll ever be to a stroke.

See, after dealing with US Air (who the new flight to Charlotte is with) I can't find NW reps, and US Air claims we are missing a flight sheet he needs to complete the boarding passes. I call NW, and talk to someone in headquarters, who contacts NW in the Memphis airport. You know what she tells me? None of the NW reps will go into the terminal so I have to go out to the ticket area to get any help. And that I better hurry because they will all be leaving for the day. Re-read: NO ONE WILL HELP ME. After relaying this message to the hub, he is seriously pissed off and we run to the ticket area. Where we proceed to stand in line to get attitude from the NW rep, who gives us the paper we already have, then we track down the US Air guy who says nothing when we say he was wrong and he cost us 2 hours of running around the airport.

We get on the flight to Charlotte (not sitting next to each other even though we requested that from the moron US Air guy) and get to Charlotte. We find the gate for the 10:30 p.m. flight to Charleston. I have my feet propped up because they are so swollen by now they look like they might explode. The lady at the gate gets on the speaker at 10:25 p.m. to announce that there are mechanical problems with the plane and we will be delayed. They finally switch us to another gate and another plane and we finally made it back to Charleston at 12:30 a.m. Which is 7 hours after we were supposed to be there. We go to the 1 baggage claim, and no bags. We tell the US Air baggage lady, who listens to me losing it, exhausted and pissed off. And you know what she said? "I'm sorry." And as the hub pointed out, she was the only person who said so all day.

We got into the car and I lost it. Everything I had been holding in, which is usually reserved for the shower, came pouring out of me. We go back to OKC on April 28th to close on our new house. I told the hub I will only fly out of a real airport, and only direct flights. My feet are still swollen and I am still trying to get over yesterday.

the thing is....

I do love my doctor, Dr. Aliff. She is personable and easy to get along with and doesn't make me feel stupid when I ask questions I should know the answers to. BUT, I don't like her office staff. Ugh. And I really didn't like a certain "Sabrina" who called me on Friday at 3:38 p.m. to tell me that they did not have an ultrasound tech available on Monday. Really? You really only found this out at 3:38 on Friday, the last business day before the ultrasound I scheduled a month ago? And this news applies to the ultrasound that tells me if my baby is healthy, developing correctly, and provides me some guidance as to pink or blue clothes?

Now, I automatically responded "no." As in, "no, you'll find an ultrasound tech, or get me a doctor who knows how to work the stupid machine, or ruin someone else's day because come Monday at 1:00 p.m. there will be cold jelly on my stomach and some strip mall ultrasound school graduate dragging a piece of plastic and pointing out things like the eyes, the hands, and the pelvic region." So she tells me that they are trying to get me in with another doctor's office, but that the other office is closed. Huh? It's now 3:40 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. What office is closed? Aren't 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. known as "business hours" for a reason? I'm certain there's an emergency number Sabrina could be calling, and apparently she doesn't consider the ultrasound I've patiently waited for to be an "emergency."

Now the clincher - Sabrina will call me Monday morning to let me know. So I have to go to court Monday morning, with my cell phone on, in the hopes that the office will in fact call me. But when I got my pregnancy test done there, they still hadn't called me with the results 6 hours after they said they would, and I finally had to call them. So, forgive me Sabrina, if I don't believe you when you say you will call me Monday morning. Sure, maybe it could easily be rescheduled, except that Josh and I are leaving on Tuesday morning at 6:55 a.m. to go to Oklahoma City, and we won't return until Saturday. So, the earliest I could get in would be another whole week. And I just can't stand it. I'm not a patient person to begin with, so Sabrina better get her act together and find me an ultrasound tech now.

the 19th week

Here I am at 19 weeks. I have now discovered what heartburn is! Luckily, I didn't really encounter it much before. Maybe because I don't do spicy foods and grew up on mostly bland food. Ponderosa was my favorite restaurant as a child. I won't get near it now. But the belly is still growing, though now it is morphing into the watermelon I love to eat. I gave in and bought a body pillow, which Sadie hates because now she can't snuggle up to my stomach and dominate the order of the bed anymore. And I feel good, though I still get tired easily and my chest-region is very sore.

craving of the week

Admittedly, I ate these before I became pregnant. But I never bought an entire box of them - only one at a time, sporadically. But there was something about that box of Little Debbie Strawberry Shortcake Rolls that I couldn't resist in the bread aisle at Wal-Mart. Did I endure the hub's jokes about chemicals all the way to the dairy section? Yes. Did I eat one when I got in the car? Yes. Did I eat another when I got home? Hell yes. You must understand, I've craved fruit forever now. But these contain no fruit. And the dog, who will eat poop in the yard, won't eat these. So wrong, but so right.