Hello Third Trimester!

This week marks week 28 in our pregnancy, which is considered the start of the third trimester! It starts to feel like time is flying by, which is fine with us because we are so excited to meet our baby! She continues to be a busy girl, rolling around and kicking me all the time. She can be quite entertaining to watch from the outside these days.

I had a great appointment today with the certified nurse midwife. As she did last time, Baby Girl kicked the doppler as soon as the midwife put it on my belly to listen to her heartbeat. Her heartbeat sounded great and my uterus is measuring perfectly for how far along I am. I passed my one hour glucose test, meaning I don't have gestational diabetes, which was a relief for me. My bloodwork showed that I have  mild anemia so I've started iron supplements. This is extremely common in pregnant women. The good news is that this "anemia" (my lab value was one away from being in the normal range, so very close) earns us two more ultrasounds to check on Baby Girl's growth. One will be right when we return from Kiawah, in about three weeks, with another around 34 weeks. I'm excited to be able to see our girlie a couple more times before she makes her big appearance and have no doubt that she is growing and developing just fine. The midwife also gave me the clear to travel by plane to Kiawah, which is good since our flights have been booked.

We continue to be so thankful for a healthy baby and supportive and loving family and friends to welcome her into the world. We hope everyone is having fun preparing for the holidays and look forward to seeing each of you soon.!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Rye and Jeff and Judy's house. Matt and I were able to stay in Rye four nights and we had a lot of fun hanging out with family and relaxing. We got to see Amanda, in from San Diego, on our way to Rye, which was a highlight of the weekend. Other highlights included celebrating Liz's birthday, going out in Portsmouth, many meals together and a girl's afternoon! It is always so nice to be around both of our families.

Our little girl continues to thrive and grow. I can definitely tell that my belly is getting bigger, and every day it seems like she is kicking in a new area (yesterday she reached my ribs!) She is starting to be more responsive to pressure on my belly, when Matt puts his hand on it she seems to find him and kick his hand. We love her so much already and can't believe that my due date is just three months away!

This weekend we are looking forward to spending time with some of the Sonneborns to celebrate Henry's (grandfather name still to be determined) birthday and Nana and Pop-pop's 70th wedding anniversary! The next weekend is our baby shower in Syracuse, and after that we head to Kiawah! We have so much to look forward to and plan to enjoy every moment.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We missed those of you we weren't able to see and look forward to seeing more family very soon.

Some of the incredible spread!!

25 weeks!

I started this post yesterday but never finished it, so it quickly turned from our 24 week update to our 25 week update. Time seems to be flying by, it's hard to believe that we will be meeting our little girl in just over three months!
Baby girl and I had a check up with the OB yesterday and everything continues to look good. Her heart rate was 130, although she was moving all around making it very difficult for the OB to count the heartbeat for the full minute. I can tell she is definitely getting bigger as in the last couple days I've felt movement higher and out more to the sides than ever before. I have one more visit at the every three week frequency, and then I move to every two weeks since I'll be entering the third trimester!
Later today we are going to pick up the nursery furniture!! We are lucky to have such good friends here, Melissa and Christian, to let us use their SUV and help us move it too.  I am so excited to start getting things set up, although that probably won't happen just yet as we need to move furniture around in her room to make space for all of her beautiful things.
Otherwise we are hanging in there, I'm fighting a cold and cough that left me with absolutely no voice for two days, but I'm starting to feel better so hopefully I'm over the worst of it.
We have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming weeks, celebrating Thanksgiving and Elizabeth's birthday next week and our Syracuse shower in three weeks!
Hope everyone is doing well, sending lots of love to you all.
-Hannah, Matt and Baby Girl

23 week update

I figured since we are nearly 24 weeks now I should post our 23 week update. Things continue to go well for me and Baby Girl. She is definitely an active baby and it feels like she is constantly on the move.
Matt and I picked out our nursery furniture this week. It should be here any day, then we just need to figure out how to get it from the store to our house. I can't wait to see it in her room! Here is what we picked out:

 Here is this week's belly picture. It's definitely getting bigger these days, though I am still not in maternity clothes yet.

I spent this weekend in Syracuse celebrating Ella's first birthday. Matt had to work but I couldn't miss such a big event. It was such a sweet party and Ella had a BLAST hamming it up for everyone. It was so nice to spend time with the Solomons and Thorntons.

We hope everyone is doing well, and to see you all soon. Xoxo

22 week update

We had our follow-up anatomy scan yesterday at one day shy of 22 weeks. The ultrasound tech was able to see everything that she couldn't last time, and everything looks great! Our little spaghetti squash (this week's vegetable) was very active during the ultrasound. Her legs were squished up by her head for a lot of the scan, as seen in the picture below. The ultrasound tech said she looked like a ballerina (must be from her mother!). We caught her yawning in the corner of the screen as the tech was looking at another part of her body, very cute to see. Baby Girl estimated weight is 490 grams, about one pound, which is strange to us since we've both cared for babies significantly smaller than that. We are so glad that she is growing well. Her movement is now occasionally visible from the outside, which is a very strange thing to see. I even took a video of my belly moving since Matt was at work the first time I saw it.
According to my app, this week her taste buds will continue to develop and her nerve endings are developed enough that she has a sense of touch.

This weekend we will be celebrating Jeff's 30th Birthday! We also found out this week that Jeff and Kat are expecting a Baby Boy!!! We are so excited for them and feel so lucky to already have a beautiful niece, and to have a sweet nephew on the way as well!!

Half way there!

Thursday was an important milestone, Baby Girl Thornton is now 20 weeks old, making us halfway to our due date! Baby girl celebrated by kicking and doing somersaults all day long! She is approximately the length of a banana (those who know me understand that I will just pretend she's still a large heirloom tomato in there this week) and weighs in at 10.5 ounces while measuring 6.5 inches. She is now making meconium, which will be first bowel movement (after birth, preferably!)
We are looking forward to our follow-up anatomy scan  in two weeks so see our little girl again.

19 week update

Our Baby Girl has been very active, and I've been feeling strong kicks since 17 weeks. Now I feel her frequently, at least several times per hour. Matt wasn't sure he felt anything from the outside, but this past Sunday when we were out to breakfast he felt two unmistakable kicks. It is so exciting to finally feel her.

Two days after we found out that we are expecting a girl, we made the trip to Syracuse for a wedding. We decided to wait and tell Matt's family (aside from Amy) in person. I wrapped up a little gift for Ellen to open to reveal our little one's sex. Ellen and Sarah put together two huge gift bags, one for a boy and one for a girl, for us to open after the reveal. It was fun to watch and Ellen's reaction was priceless. Needless to say, everyone is excited to be expecting a granddaughter and niece! It was a really fun night and a great memory.

 What Ellen saw when she opened the box.....

 Saturday night we went to Beth and Bryan's wedding. I had to pose by the LOVE ice scupture for our 19 week belly picture. My belly bump is definitely still small, but growing.

 No post about a trip to Syracuse is complete without a picture of Miss Ella. Here she is out to breakfast sporting an outfit from Aunt Hannah. She is so much fun to be around and loved showing off her new skills, standing without assistance and clapping, for us this weekend. We love her to pieces.

Our anatomy scan

On Wednesday 10/5, Matt and I went to our OB's office for our scheduled anatomy scan, where they examine the baby from head to toe by ultrasound. We were thrilled (and surprised!) to find out that our little one is a baby GIRL!!!! Our little one was breech, with her butt facing down and her legs up by her face, which made for a challenge for the ultrasound technician. However, our little one was very active and was constantly changing position. She was able to see a good amount and take many measurements, but due to Baby Girl's position, we have to go back in a couple weeks to take another look at her heart, face and spine. Everything looked very healthy and she is growing well, we feel so fortunate.
Here are a couple ultrasound pictures from our anatomy scan. I love the first picture, she was yawning and we watched it on the ultrasound, and the tech was able to capture it for us!

This picture is of our Baby all curled up, with her knee by her nose and her five toes near her forehead!

 Another one of Baby Girl curled up with a good view of her spine.

17 weeks and counting!

Hi all!
Sorry for the lack of updates! I will reward you for waiting an entire month for a post by posting my first ever belly picture!! On Friday I woke up and it seemed like all of a sudden my belly had popped out, and stayed that way (before it's looked like this, but only after eating or if I was pushing it out)....now it seems to be here to stay! I'm loving it. This picture is from last week, we haven't taken one this week yet, but when we do I'll put it in the next post.
Baby Thornton seems to be doing well. The heartbeat sounded great at our last appointment a couple days ago. According to the apps on my phone, this week Baby T is 5.5 inches long mastering reflexes such as blinking, sucking swallowing and even yawning! Our baby is now able to hear sounds and his or her sense of hearing is sharpening, guess we should start reading to the baby soon! The baby is now big enough that it is possible to feel his or her movements, though I don't think I have felt anything yet. Some women feel movement around 15-16 weeks, while others are much later such as 20-21 weeks.
Our anatomy scan is scheduled for the first week of October, we are looking forward to getting all of baby's body systems checked out, as well as finding out if our little one is a girl or a boy!!
It has been awesome to go through this experience with Kat. We've hit up quite a few maternity shops and are having tons of fun. I can only imagine the shopping once we both know the sexes out our babies. I've linked their blog on the side of this one so you can follow them too, if you aren't already!! I also added a poll to our blog for you to vote if you think the baby is a girl or a boy. As of right now it's all tied up with half the votes for boy and half for girl!

More week 13 Adventures

Today Baby T and I had a quick check-up with the certified nurse midwife. It was the first time the doppler's been used to heart the heartbeat. We've been spoiled, and have heard the heartbeat via ultrasound, but from now on, aside from the anatomy scan, the doppler will be how we hear the heartbeat at each appointment. As soon as the midwife put the wand on my belly the sound of the heart rate filled the room. It's always so wonderful to hear.
Thanks to Hurricane Irene we have been without power for nearly four days. Matt and I have both worked the last four nights, so it hasn't been too inconvenient to be without power. Tonight we decided to head up to West Hartford to spend the night with Jeff and Kat (and Baby Sonny), who never lost power. It has been so nice to spend the evening with them! We are so excited that Baby T will have a cousin born around the same time as him/her and have loved sharing this adventure with Jeff and Kat so far.
For those who have not seen me lately, there's not much to see in the way of a baby bump yet. We have been taking belly pictures periodically, and will share some of them on here soon.

Lucky 13!!

Today is a big day for us-- Baby Thornton is now 13 weeks which marks the beginning of the second trimester!! It's hard to believe we are a third of the way through the pregnancy. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming weeks....finding out our little ones gender and beginning to get a baby bump are right around the corner! 13 is Matt's lucky number and he knew our little one would bring me good luck today as I sat for my boards to become a certified pediatric nurse practitioner. Thankfully, he was right and I passed my boards. It's hard to believe that would very well be the last test I ever take (never say never...). I celebrated passing the exam by going shopping and I bought a few things for the baby! The cutest item is a book for Matt to start reading to the baby. The book is "Spot Loves His Daddy" and I bought it because I knew pages about Spot and his dad playing soccer would totally hook Matt.
Another weird coincidence today--- while I was taking my boards Matt was waiting at the DMV to get Connecticut license plates. The plates that they randomly gave him start with "313"...which is his date of birth!!
Hope everyone is doing well!! Looking forward to seeing you all soon!
Love,
Hannah

More good news for Baby Thornton!

 Today we had our first trimester risk assessment, which combines information from the mother's history, blood work results, and results from specific measurements taken from an ultrasound. The ultrasound portion of the screening was today, and we loved getting to peek in on our little one yet again. At first the baby was sleepy, but with some coaxing from the ultrasound tech and some coughing done on my part, he or she perked right up and put on quite the show. He or she measured exactly on track for 11 weeks 6 days. The measurements were all perfect and the risks for the diseases they looked for today are very, very low. The ultrasound tech was also able to show us all 4 chambers of the heart, as well as the important heart valves already working hard. We also got a good look at the brain, and saw the heart beating away in the chest the entire time. The heartbeat was 162. After the ultrasound we met with the maternal-fetal medicine fellow, as well as a geneticist to go over the results. It was all good news.

Today we also decided to share the news with the world (AKA Facebook), since we hit the 12 week mark tomorrow. This makes it feel so much more real, now that the word is out and so many more people know the news.  Enjoy the pictures that we got today! You can make them bigger by clicking on them.

I love this shot with his/her little fingers up by the face

Another peek at Baby T

On August 10th we were able to have another peek at our little one. They ordered another ultrasound to confirm the dating of the pregnancy. The baby's size was perfect and is measuring on track for our due date of March 1, 2012. The most amazing thing was being able to see the baby waving its hands and kicking its legs throughout the entire ultrasound! He or she was very active, and Matt thinks they are just practicing for soccer already. We heard and saw the heartbeat, which was beating 178 times per minute.
Waving right at us!

 With both arms up

 Clearly defined fingers

Kiawah!

We spent a wonderful week in Kiawah with all of the Thorntons. Baby was very kind to me and I had no sickness at all during all of the travel. We had a wonderful time, as we always do in Kiawah. We took a few pictures to help announce the upcoming arrival of Baby Thornton. The last picture was taking on my 28th Birthday, and Baby's 10 week mark!

Our first peek at Baby T

Our first ultrasound was on July 18, 2011. As Baby T immediately filled up the screen, Hannah immediately began to cry. We both loved seeing the heart beating away. Baby's heartrate was perfect at 138 beats per minute and all measurements were on target.

Welcome to our blog!

Hi Friends and Family!!

We decided to start a blog to keep our friends and families posted on the progress of our pregnancy with our sweet baby. We hope to update it throughout the pregnancy, and keep the updates coming after the baby is born to keep everyone posted and share lots of cute pictures! Thanks for visiting!