The Rabbit is Dead

You may or may not know the old story about how a woman used to know she was pregnant. There are several versions floating around out there, but basically, a woman's urine would be injected into the rabbit. If the rabbit died, she was pregnant. Or, another version of the story says that actually the rabbit HAD to die, because they had to look at her ovaries to see if she had reacted to the pregnant woman's urine. I'm thinking that either way, I'm certainly glad we now have little sticks to pee on. Poor bunnies.

So yes, the proverbial rabbit is dead. We are expecting a wee one round about March 21. Then our family, as far as I'm concerned, will be complete. Chris still makes noise about a third, but I've told him he can have the third one if he wants.

So far, this pregnancy has been more difficult than my first. I started feeling sick at about three weeks, which is before you can technically do a home pregnancy test. I finally took the test a few days before you are really supposed to because if I hadn't seen that little plus sign, I was going to call the doctor to have my head checked. The nausea was really significant.

And last time, I could barely eat. I lost a good ten pounds in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Not true this time, unfortunately. I'm maintaining a steady state of overweightedness. Joy. And I have to eat every two hours or so from waking until midnight! And I'm craving cake. *sigh*

I have included our first ultrasound in this post. When we did this with Athena, we saw a little black and white fuzzy lima bean on the screen with a little E.T. heart lighting up as it beat. So this time, Chris and I were certainly looking forward to seeing our little plantlife, but we weren't going in with high hopes. And, as we started out, everything looked the same as before. The machine seemed newer and fancier, but it was the same black and white blur on the screen. Then, the technician flipped a switch and... what's that? A HEARTBEAT!!! Normally, you can't hear a heartbeat until the 10th or 12th week. And there it was. Strong and regular. And then, just when we were sure the surprises were through, she announced it was a 3-D ultrasound! She flipped another switch and we were presented with images like the one I've posted here. A lima bean no more, our little offspring clearly has a head, little arms, little legs, and a little tail! (That tail does go away... we all had one). This image really doesn't even do the images we saw justice. The still shots are not as clear as the motion. (Oh, and if you are wondering, the little blob toward the bottom left is the yolk sac -- baby food).

So there's the big news! Chris thinks it's a boy, and I have to side with him (even though I really want another girl) because this one has been so different. However, I hear that no two pregnancies are the same... which is really unfortunate. My first pregnancy was a breeze. I was really hoping for a repeat.