160

A week ago, Kev and I heard our little pumpkin's sweet heartbeat. Our midwife couldn't find it at first, but I didn't panic, thanks to the wise advice of this lady.

Our midwife calmly rolled in the little ultrasound machine to make sure she was looking in the right spot. She isn't trained to use the machine, but we did get little glimpses of our sweet baby. He or she was moving around SO much. We got quick glimpses of fingers, and his or her legs and arms looked like they were doing the macarena. Kevin is said it'll be a boxer; I said it'll be a dancer :)

The heartrate was 160 which our midwife said was nice and strong. Almost everyone around us thinks it's a girl, and I kind of agree with them. I realized that everytime I have a thought about this baby (which is quite often), I think of it as a female without realizing it.

I finally realize why people usually say they don't care about the gender as long as the baby is healthy. I've been bombarded lately with all of the horrific things that can go wrong with the baby, so I am just in an almost constant state of prayer that his or her little body will develop strong and healthy. For some reason, several people from various parts of my life have been telling me lately about people they know whose baby died a week after birth, or they found out two days before it was born that it had a horrible, fatal defect, or they miscarried at 18 weeks, or other horrible things. Horrific! I just keep reminding myself that a) we serve a God who has promised us GOOD things and really and truly LOVES us. We have to just trust that our sweet babe is in His hands, and He knows what He's doing. and b) I know tons of people with babies and kids, and almost all of those have had normal pregnancies and healthy babies.

And lastly, I have been feeling like a fat whale lately. I haven't gained any poundage yet, but my clothes aren't fitting which is never good for the ol' self-confidence. Kevin's like, "YOU'RE PREGNANT!" Yes, darling, I realize that, but I've never had my clothes refuse to button or fit so tightly on my new curves. I'd rather just start looking pregnant because at this point, I just look like I have a big beer belly. Yuck.