Baby's First Photos

These are some of our baby’s first photos. It is an awesome thing to see our child move around in the womb. During the first ultrasound in August he or she was only three centimeters in length, but was very active—kicking and moving its arms like a freestyle swimmer. What especially struck me was the sound of the tiny fetus’ heartbeat. The doctor turned up the sound on the ultrasound machine and the heartbeat filled the entire examination room—the stamp of human life at only 3 centimeters in size.



These two photos are from the end of September. The baby is quite a bit bigger and still just as active. Ryan was present for this ultrasound and asked the doctor, “When is it possible to find out the sex of the baby?” We hadn’t yet decided if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and Ryan asked this question out of curiosity and not out of the desire to know our baby’s gender. But the doctor replied, “Well, let’s see.” And from then on he was in search for the genitals. He was able to get a pretty good angle of that critical region and said, “That looks like a penis.” Of course, at only 15 weeks it was far too early to guarantee, but now that we think it may be a boy, we are going to find out the sex just to make sure. If it is a girl, we’ll have an ironic photo for her baby book with an arrow pointing to the crotch and the word “boy.”



Ryan and I have been working on choosing a name for our child, and since our doctor thinks that he may’ve found a penis, we are focusing on boy names. So far the names in running are: Cash, Ace, Champ, Hrothgar, and Santa (‘tis the season, right?). But most recently, our family has been fixated on the name “Klaus.” Do any of you have any suggestions? Feel free to enter them in the comments section of this blog.

Harlee and Me

A lot has occurred since our last post (granted, it’s been several months and lot can happen in that time): we have two new additions to our family. One is in the form of a frisky feline who we named Harlee. The second is the baby that is growing in my belly (Jessie’s—in case it wasn’t clear).


Harlee was given to us by our friends Jesse and Danyale back in September. It took us a while to name her, but straightaway we noticed two of the most endearing qualities: she loves to play, and she purrs nonstop whenever we’re in her vicinity. Her domain is our newly insulated garage where we’ve rigged all sorts of toys for her: a beanie baby on a string. a plastic strip from the seal of a five-gallon paint bucket, ping-pong balls, paper bags, open boxes, etc. She runs free through all of our junk and has many secret passageways and hiding places. Sometimes I try to bring her in the house, but she’s just too hyperactive. The TV wires turn into jungle vines from which to swing from, our couch becomes a scratching post, and our book shelves a jungle gym. Maybe when she’s older and tamer we’ll let her in more often. So for now she’s our garage cat and once she’s spayed Ryan will install a kitty door in our garage so she can roam outdoors as well. Right now she only feels safe venturing into the yard if we’re there or if she steals out under the cover of night—but then we can’t see her, so we’re not very comfortable with that.



Some may wonder why the name “Harlee.” It’s because she purrs so much. Each morning when I awaken, turn on lights, and begin fixing my breakfast she awakens as well. I know this because the door to our garage is in our kitchen/dining room. As I sit and eat my breakfast I can hear her purring away on the other side of the door. I haven’t yet opened the door, petted her, or even spoken to her but she’s already purring. The vet was astonished at her purring abilities as well. As she gave Harlee her shots and washed all of the mites out of her ears with a soapy solution—Harlee purred through the whole thing! The previous cat had moaned and hissed and meowed, but our Harlee just purred. So instead of naming something like the Purrmanantor or Purrkalator, she’s Harlee like the big hogs that sputter and purr as they drive down the road—only the sound she makes us much more pleasant.





That’s enough about Harlee, now about me. And when you’re pregnant it’s “ALL about ME.” Kami (Ryan’s sister) has requested to see pictures of my growing abdomen so I’ve put my pride aside and posted the first two. Ryan made me start posing with the same outfit on in the same spot around week 14.



This picture is about week 18, and I will post the next picture in two weeks at the beginning of week 22. And for those who haven’t seen me in the past two weeks, I’ve really begun to poke out.