A well documented beginning...

Almost as well documented as Lincoln's beginning (but not quite), our little girl has already had many photographs (or more precisely, sonograms) taken of her. Today was the first appointment I have had where we didn't take a peak to see how she is doing. It was blessedly uneventful, which is always a wonderful thing (I haven't had very many uneventful appointments while pregnant). Dr. B found her heartbeat with the doppler pretty quickly, and listened for about 5-10 seconds. It was a perfectly normal appointment for 14 weeks!

Our next appointment on October 27th, will be the fetal anatomy scan...and really one of the last big hurdles to cross before we can hope to believe that she might truly be 100% healthy. The other hurdle is called the AFP (alpha fetal protein) test, which is just a blood draw for me in about 2 weeks. The AFP is a screening test that looks for neural tube defects like spina bifida (one of the main common birth defects that a CVS cannot test for). The fetal anatomy scan on Oct. 27th is another ultrasound where our doctor spends time looking at the baby's heart, blood flow, lungs, brain, kidneys, stomach, diaphragm, umbilical cord, spine, hands, arms, legs, feet, and facial structure to make sure that everything is developing appropriately and is in the correct place and the correct size for her gestation. We will also be getting assigned an official due date. It should be somewhere between March 25th and April 2nd, but in all honesty it doesn't really matter, because she will come when she comes.

Here she is, in all her embryonic (weeks 3-9) and fetal (weeks 9-40) glory! These are pictures of pictures, which makes them even more fuzzy than a normal ultrasound picture would be. Sorry.


Week 6, you can see the gestational sac (black oval), and inside a little blur that is the baby. Believe it or not, we actually saw her heartbeat that day!


Week 8. You can see how much she has grown. She looks like a little gummy bear with that giant head, and little arm and leg buds. You can even see her tail!


Week 10. She has now graduated to a true fetus, which she will remain until she is born. A little alien like, you can see her even more giant head, as well as little tiny black pinpoints which are her eyes, and the arms and legs again.



11 weeks (CVS test). This picture is a little less than 1 week after the previous one, but instead shows a profile view. You can see her head on the left and her body on the right. Her arms and legs are curled up close to her body in this picture, but we did see her moving them during the CVS procedure.

These pictures were taken over a period of 5 weeks. Isn't it amazing how quickly they grow and change? Almost a month has passed since her last picture. I wonder what she looks like now? :) We will 'see' her pretty face again in one month at the fetal anatomy scan. I am hoping to be feeling her movements by then also!

Havalina Encounter

So yesterday Lincoln woke up at 6am. I went in gave him his pacifier and he fell back asleep. As I was closing the door to his room, our cat, Clay, ran by me to the bedroom growling. I thought that it was strange that he growled at me. I went into the living room to let the cats out before heading back to bed. This is what I saw when I got there...

What a suprise, huh?! So I ran and woke up Andy to show him. And, after struggling for a bit, he managed to chase them back out of the gate in our backyard with the hose and a bunch of noise. It was a crazy way to start the day.

Final CVS Update

The genetics office called this morning. I assumed that they were just returning the call I made on Friday when I was all freaked out that we wouldn't be getting the results for months. Well, I was wrong. He said that he didn't know who I had spoken to at the lab, but that the results were sitting on his desk when he got into work this morning. And...they are negative for Lincoln's mutation of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex! So that means that all of the testing that we can do (almost) show that this little baby is perfectly normal. It doesn't have TSC, and has the right number and pairing of all the other chromosomes!!

Now for the fun part...
We have known the sex of the baby for the past week, but we wanted to wait to share the news until we knew the outcome of the TSC screening. I got the phone call on Friday morning, so I had time to prepare a suprise before Andy got home.



Was red or blue food coloring added to the batter??




Scroll down to see the result!













Wait for it...
















Wait...
















Keep scrolling...
















Just a little more...















Once Andy got home, he cut the cake...




It's pink! We are having a baby GIRL!! 65% of the internet pollers got it right! Good guessers!!

Here is Lincoln enjoying his "little sister" cake.

Second trimester

Yesterday, Baby Blatchford hit 13wks and 3days gestation. This may seem like a random number of weeks and days to anyone who has never been pregnant. However, it is the date that we cross from the first to the second trimester. Typically, this is a celebrated milestone because most people consider you to be "in the clear" and no longer at risk of a miscarriage. Anyone who knows us, knows that we lost our first baby boy at 18 weeks...which was considered a late term miscarriage, because we were well into the 2nd trimester at that time. However, statistically, reaching the 2nd trimester is something to celebrate...and so we have, and will continue to do so, everytime it happens. Even if we no longer feel confortable taking that sigh of relief everyone talks about, we do celebrate what the 2nd trimester brings! In a few weeks, I will have a baby belly to be proud of, and will begin to feel our son/daughter move! These are some of the most wonderful things about pregnancy, and I cannot wait to experience them again with this little one!

A call came in from the lab today...

And no, it's not what you think. They called to verify our insurance, so I decided to ask when we should be expecting the results (expecting her to say sometime mid-next week). Well she then told me that lab tests take 21-28 days turn-around time. So then I informed her that the doctor who performed the CVS said that we should be expecting the results within 7-10 days of when they recieved the sample. So she told me to hold on and she would check our paperwork. She then comes back and says that the promise date on the results is NOVEMBER 17th!

I freaked out a little bit, and told her that this was a CVS sample, and that I would be much to pregnant at that point to be very comfortable doing anything with the results one way or the other. She said she understood, and gave me the client service number to call on Monday. Ugh! What a nightmare. I also left a message with the doctor's office that took the CVS sample and told them what the lab had said, and how 2 months was an unacceptable amount of time to wait for these types of results.

We will see what comes of this mess. But if we can't get things sped up, we may just have to wait it out, and accept the fate of this little one regardless of the results. This may end up being a gamble that is bigger than we ever anticipated. I really don't know if our family could handle having another child with TSC, especially if it as serious or more serious than Lincoln's TSC. It might just break us.

The wait continues...

I feel like we are in a holding pattern regarding our new little one, and any plans for the future.
We are just waiting.
Waiting to find out if he/she has TSC.
Waiting to share the news of his/her sex until we know whether he/she has TSC.
Waiting to know if I will need to buy more baby items.
Waiting to know if I will need to buy some winter maternity clothes.
Waiting to know if we need to make plans for Andy to be here and able to take time off in March.
Waiting to know if we need to make plans with a famly member to come in March and watch Lincoln while his baby brother or sister arrives.
Waiting to pick out a name.
Waiting to get excited.
Waiting to make plans.
Just waiting.


I hope that all of this waiting ends in good news. On one hand I just want to know, no matter what, and the sooner the better...but on the other hand, I am so afraid that this special time with our newest little one will be cut short by bad news. We should know for sure one way or the other, by the end of next week. If we don't know by then, I think I will go crazy...

CVS test results

Well, I just got a call this morning with the test results. This is just the general CVS chromosome screen which checks to make sure there are the appropriate number of chromsomes (i.e 46XY, normal or 46XX, normal). And it looks like we are in the green for this set of tests. We still have to wait 1-2 weeks for the Tuberous Sclerosis screening to come back, but so far, all early indications are showing that this is a healthy baby boy or girl. We will be waiting on pins and needles until the TSC results are complete. When we know, we will share that information here.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

We headed to this zoo after we finished up with the Garden of the Gods (on our trip to Colorado Springs over labor day weekend). This zoo was pretty cool. It was on Cheyenne Mountain itself, and was spread up the hillside. There were about 3-4 levels to the zoo, and this made for really interesting exhibits and viewing lofts. Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to capture that in the photos I took, but trust me, you sould see it yourself. It makes Tucson's zoo look very hot, plain, and sparse. We spent about 2-3 hours at this zoo, but we pretty much booked it around the exhibits, since we got such a late start in the day, we didn't get food, or spend much time reading the informational signs.

We had previously taken Lincoln to the Tucson Zoo back in April on the free day. We figured he wouldn't care much about the animals, but it was good to get him out and expose him to different things. We were right. The only animal I think he even saw at the Tucson zoo was the peacock, and that was not even in a cage. I think at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo he noticed a lot more of the animals. I am sure he didn't really know what to think about them, because he still didn't seem overly interested, but the experience was a bit better anyway.

I accidentally uploaded these pictures in reverse order, so just imagine us seeing these things in the opposite order.

The ape house:

This orangutan was soo cute. He had a momma and baby to watch over, but he still had the time to entertain all of us humans. He was really playful and in the video you can see him "kissing" at the little kids that get close to him. He did it for a long time, and really made thosee kids' days. :)

Daddy showing Lincoln the Gorillas. Lincoln noticed, and seemed somewhat curious about them.

Mommy & baby gorilla. This baby was dangling all over the momma before I started filming. It looks like the momma finally had had enough of it. I also though it was interesting that it appears that pregnancy and breastfeeding seems to wreak havoc on gorillas breasts similarly to humans.

Komodo Dragon. I think these things are pretty neat. I am glad that it was behind glass though, because I have heard that they really have stinky breath. ;)

These (I forget what they are, something related to, but much smaller than Kangaroos) were in an exhibit where you can just walk right through. It has double gates on both sides to prevent excapees, but it was interesting to be able to get so close to them. However, they seemed completely uninterested in the people in their home.

The aviary. One of the few exhibits that really got a response from Lincoln. There were soooo many bright, loud, active, colorful birds in there, that he couldn't help but notice, watch, and be interested in them.

What Lincoln looked like almost the entire time we were in the aviary. All smiles!

Grizzly bear exhibit. This seemed brand new, and very nice. Plus, the two bears in there were in a playful mood, and were swimming and play fighting, just like puppies would. I have a video of them below, but they were much more active right before I started filming (figures!).

Look at the crowd that has gathered to watch. The glass was pretty filmy, so I think Lincoln had a hard time seeing what was going on. He got pretty bored with us standing there for so long watching the bears play.

We didn't spend long looking at the lions, but I just loved the way theirs eyes are glowing in these pictures. Makes you kinda imagine what it might be like to shine your flashlight around at night out in the African Savannah.

I have never seen so many giraffes in one place as I did here at this zoo. There must have been like 20 of them! I have heard that this zoo is world renowned for its giraffe exhibit and successful breeding program.

A nice family picture taken by a kind stranger. :)

Garden of the Gods

On Saturday, Labor day weekend, in the early afternoon we headed out to the Garden of the Gods just outside of Colorado Springs, CO. This place has beautiful red sandstone that has been, through various geological processes, tilted vertically, so it weathers down between the layers and creates these crazy looking pointy monoliths. Other than the curiousity and beauty of these formations, entrance to the park was free, because the landower years and years ago gifted the area to the city, with the stipulation that the area will always be free to anyone who wants to enjoy it. The only regulations that they had were to not climb on the formations without a permit and the proper gear. Of course there were many there who either could not read, or chose to believe that those rules did not apply to them. Things like that irritate me to no end, and honestly, they deserve to get those sprained ankles or scraped knees that they seem to be asking for. Aside from that, the weather there was beautiful, and it was so nice to be outside in the sunshine, and be comfortable at the same time. Here are some pictures from the Garden of the Gods.

Stay tuned for another post this week about what we did later that same day!

MRI Adventures

Well, the MRI wasn't really the adventure, being that this was his 5th MRI in the past year, it was actually pretty "old hat"...although I am sure that Lincoln would not agree. However, the trip getting to Phoenix was the actual adventure. We had dead car batteries, traffic, a broken hotel computer systems, then more traffic, and getting a bit lost in the hospital complex. All in all, we survived, made it to the MRI, only 15 min late or so. Lincoln went under fine, had his 1 hour long MRI, then when he came out of sedation he was letting everyone in the back rooms know that he was not enjoying his time at St. Joseph's hosptial any longer! After feeding him some glucose water solution to settle his tummy, we took off and headed home. Despite all predictions Lincoln remained awake both to and from Phoenix. I guess our little sleepy head is finally waking up. We stopped halfway and got Lincoln some ice cream as a little treat. I think he experienced his first "brain freeze" because he was trying to eat it so fast. It gave him a bit of a pause, but, it certainly didn't put him off of eating the ice cream!

Because he liked ice cream so much, we used to add his Topamax to a dish after dinner. He only put up with that for about a week before he started refusing the ice cream! Ah! The power of bad tasting meds. I was worried that we had ruined ice cream forever. But apparently, his love affair for the frozen treat continues...

Some pics from when he was 7mo, enjoying his first ice cream cone:







Lincoln enjoying Daddy's popsicle at 10mo:

My design style

Tina, you are an Earthy Casual
You're interested in creating a welcoming home where people feel comfortable and happiness flourishes. You appreciate the warmth and individuality of natural materials and handcrafted things and are inspired by colors and forms from nature. You love mixing up different textures and are sensitive to the tactile qualities of objects. Your style is grounded and solid, not flighty or frilly. And you are never taken in by the trend of the moment.
You value order. You feel happiest if your home is well organized. You understand that when your house is in order, your mind feels clearer. Rather than a lot of meaningless objects or overly-designed items, you are happier with a few well-placed things. Your home is your respite from a busy life. Try to avoid letting things into your home that you don't really love.

This was a fun quiz, and the result is pretty accurate, in my opinion. If you are wondering what your design style is, follow this link: http://www.homegoods.com/hghq_quiz.asp

A Special Day For Many

Happy Grandparents Day to all of the grandparents out there!

The waiting begins...

Yesterday we had the CVS procedure done on little baby Blatchford. The doc seems to think it went well. To our unexperienced eyes, it seems like they had some difficulties getting to the placenta, and appeared to poke the baby in the head with the catheter. It was more painful and uncomfortable than I thought it would be transcervically, but I was relieved that they didn't have to do it transabdominally, with the giant needle. All in all, I am glad that it is over, and now all we have to do it wait.

We should have the basic chromosome study results by 9/16 - 9/18 (8-10 days after the procedure). We will find out if baby Blatchford has the normal number of chromosomes, and we will find out if we will need to buy some pink stuff, or if we are good to go already with the blue. We should have the TSC results by 9/24 - 9/28 (or 8-10 days after the first results are in). So by the end of the month we will know if we should be expecting a healthy baby boy or girl in March of 2010!

Holter Monitor Results

The cardiologist reviewed the Holter results, and sent us a letter in the mail. It states: Frequent extra beats (PVC's) but no arrhythmias. Will change follow-up appointment with Lincoln to 6 months. No current medication required.

No phone calls, no new medications, just a follow-up in 6 months instead of 2 years. Hmm. So I guess this is a good thing? I suppose the best we could have hoped for. Although, it would have been nice to see the report say...perfectly normal heart function or something like that.

But I guess we should take what we get and be grateful that it isn't much worse.