New blog!

With only three weeks to go until our son enters the world, we decided to create a more personal space to post updates, pictures, videos, etc. of the "family" side of our lives. Of course, it will largely feature the kiddo, but we'll try to keep it interesting with other things as well. Kelly will keep updating Onward, Westward with all of his great nature finds and photography, but if you're interested in following our personal side as well, check us out at htpp://us-plus.blogspot.com. We've also included a link under the "Links" heading on the right-hand sidebar to make it easy to go from one blog to the other.

If you decide to follow us there, we hope you'll enjoy it! If you're here just for the nature/biology fun, then keep coming back! Kelly will still maintain this site just like always -- and you won't have to scroll through baby pictures to find your target species. :)

A Tale of Two T-Shirts

Those of you who see me regularly or know me well might recognize my favorite T-shirt, since I wear it all the time.



This T-shirt has a special story behind it, which, aside from it being an awesome shirt, adds to the reasons why it's my favorite.

I got this T-shirt when Kelly and I lived in Oregon. It's from a vendor called Cretin Art that sells T-shirts with hand-drawn designs at the Portland Saturday Market. While most of the drawings are a little fantastical for my taste, he had this amazing scraggly tree that Kelly and I just fell in love with. Unfortunately, they didn't have any shirts with this drawing on it in my size, so they offered to make one specially for me. I got to choose the color of shirt and the ink color, and they mailed it to me since we didn't live in Portland and wouldn't be back at the market the following week. Since then, it's been my favorite T-shirt ever, and Kelly always loves when I wear it.

So as you can imagine, it was a sad day a few months ago when I had to pack up my "tree shirt" along with the other clothes that won't fit my growing belly anymore. I know it's a temporary condition, but even a few months -- and hot, summer months at that -- when I can't wear my favorite shirt are sad ones.

That is, until the other day, when I opened my closet to pack clothes for our recent anniversary get-away to St. Augustine, and discovered a white T-shirt mysteriously back in place after having gone missing for about a month. Where had it gone? How had it returned? Did Kelly find it somewhere and quietly hang it back in its place without mentioning it to me, even though he knew I had been confounded by its disappearance for weeks?

I moved the surrounding clothes back to take a look at the shirt, and what did I find? [GASP!]



Evidently, a couple of months ago, Kelly had secretly contacted the makers of my original shirt, asking them if they sold maternity T-shirts. They didn't, but said that if he could send them one they would print on it, or if he found one online, they would buy it, print it, and just charge him the total price. So my sweet husband, who loathes shopping, tried to shop for a maternity T-shirt online, but to no avail. When I happened to purchase one, he stole it from my closet, sent it to Oregon with a special request for the tree, and then returned it to my closet for me to find! Happy pregnancy to me!! My favorite shirt now comes in maternity size! It was the sweetest, most thoughtful gift ever! I just had to share my excitement, and brag on Kelly for being so amazing.

Ultrasound #2

At my doctor's appointment last month, we had an ultrasound done to check all the pieces and parts of our baby to make sure everything was in working order. During the appointment, he was being a little uncooperative, and didn't want to smile for the camera. He kept moving and turning away just when they tried to take a freeze-frame of his little face and brain. So they finally gave up, and scheduled me for a repeat ultrasound this month.

This time, he was a little more subdued, but he's kind of wedged with his head down in a little pocket, so the angle was still difficult for them to get. Eventually, however, they were able to see everything they needed, and it all looked great! It was cool to see our little guy again, and get to see how much he's grown in just four weeks!


If you compare this profile to the one we posted last month, you can see how much he's changed, and how much more space he's taking up.


He looks so much older! :)

Here are a few videos we took during the ultrasound:


This video is his heartbeat again. It sounds like a drumbeat this time! I think the doppler must have been directly over his heart! His heart beats at 143 beats per minute, which is right in the perfect range for a fetus.




In this video, you can see him swallowing, and it's cool to see his heart beating. Babies swallow lots of amniotic fluid, which helps them practice for their first snack right after being born, and it helps their digestive systems learn how to process substances. And though his taste buds are developed enough by this time to actually taste it -- it's "flavored" by what I eat -- he's not actually getting any nourishment from the amniotic fluid. All of his nutrients come from the placenta.



In this video, you can see that he has his hand up by his face. Because of the depth of focus of the ultrasound, you can usually only see one at a time -- either the arm or the face -- but a couple of times you can see both...as well as him fluttering his eyelids and swallowing some more at the end! He was yawning a lot this time, too, but unfortunately we didn't get to capture that on film.

Our Next Big Adventure

We've moved across the country multiple times. We've turned long and short weekends into memorable excursions. What's next on our adventure agenda? A baby BOY! After almost seven years of marriage, Kelly and I finally decided to take the plunge into parenthood, and today, we got to put a face with a...well, not quite a name yet, but that will come soon enough. See our pictures and video below for the first glimpses of our little man!


In this profile shot, he's facing up with his spine going to the left.


Here you can see his legs at the top of the photo. They look at little disjointed, but I swear he has knees! The ultrasound is just picking up the hard bone structures rather than what right now are soft growth plates at the knees. (You can see his body diving down to the very right of the picture. The structure just below the legs is the placenta.)


Fortunately, he does not have 6-7 toes on one foot...his two feet are just overlapping in this one -- since his legs are crossed like in the above photo.


Here he's facing upward, head at right, with his hand near his face.

And this is a video of his sweet little heartbeat! The "false starts" at the beginning are just the ultrasound technician getting the doppler in the exact location to hear it the best:



And for those of you who have asked for it, here's a photo to show how "pregnant" I look these days. I'm 19 weeks (out of 40) -- almost half-way!:


Kelly wants me to point out the Common Loon I'm looking at in the water to the left and back. :)