The bump is growing

Here we are at 24 weeks (baby and I). Some weeks my belly grows so fast and then it slows down again. Started to be more tired again, as I approach third trimester. We plan to get away from base for our anniversary weekend, one last "trip" before the baby comes. Actually we'll just be staying in town at a B&B. But it will be nice to have a whole cabin to ourselves, space to stretch out.

Since we both like change, we rearranged our furniture in our room yesterday. That's always fun. We're slowly gathering the parts to put up a couple of curtains. I'm hoping to make some cutesy curtains to go by where we plan to put the crib. Since we won't have a separate baby room, we'll decorate the corner of the room to be special.

Cooking is going well, I now have my systems in place. I know where to get the best deals on things and always keep an eye out for sales at Safeway.

We're already planning for the outreach phase of this school. We won't be going with the students on their two month outreach to St. Lawrence island. However, we will probably be hosting short term teams that want to do outreach in Alaska. And we may be able to go with them for one or two weeks. My leaders want to be careful of me travelling while pregnant, so I may not go at al except on short raod trips. BearHunter might join the roadtrip that's delivering some donated vehicles to the base from the lower 48...he's totally excited about that. He really wants to travel the Al-Can Highway.

-CallaLily

First Ultrasound

Here's the baby's face. We had our first ultrasound this last week. What a blast. Our rambunctious little one was squirming around so much it was hard to keep track of the heart rate and pictures the technician was trying to capture. We were able to see the face, spine, belly, heart chambers, tiny stomach, legs, feet, arms, umbilical cord and some of the hands. The computer measured everything and confirmed our due date of June 7 is right on. It was cool to see the baby kicking in action and moving around. We laughed and had a fun time. The technician gave us a 75% chance prediction on the gender. You'll have to personally email us to find out since some of our family members want to wait, so we won't be posting that data yet. It seems that since the ultrasound I have an increased awareness of all the squirming going on in there and feel more movement than I did before. BearHunter has had a number of opportunities to feel movement and kicks as well. I think we've got an athlete in this little bundle.

So all is well in baby land. We toured the birthing center at the hospital and are considering all the possible locations to give birth in the community. There are a few potentially "fun" ones. Perhaps a yurt, or a log cabin. Though outside of the hospital means finding a different midwife available for homebirths.

Now that WE know the gender, we're honing in on just the right name. Searching the Bible names, looking at meanings, praying that if God has a special name for the child to reveal it to us. It is more fun and easier to imagine the baby's life of after birth, knowing whether it's a boy or girl. It's no longer a nebulous future. But who will he/she look like? Hopefully like both of us. Bless you all, wish you could be here to share my joy. I know you're thinking of us. Thanks for posting your comments or emailing us personally. Love, CallaLily