Baby Girl Stuff

Can I just tell you how much I love being able to type the title “baby girl”? Love it, love it, love it! And I love that I can now think to myself “she’s kicking me”. Yup, this weekend I started feeling stronger movements…. finally! I felt little “flutters” here and there for a few weeks, but was surprised I hadn’t felt anything stronger until this weekend. At the ultrasound I found out why I hadn’t been feeling much yet – the placenta  is in front this time around, so that teeny, tiny girl has an extra inch of stuff to kick through before I’ll feel it.

Speaking of the ultrasound, want to see some pictures?

First up, evidence of her girliness!

Her lovely little profile. For those not accustomed to reading ultrasound photos, her head is on the right and the dark spot is her eye. You should be able to pick out her nose, mouth and chin from there.

I love this one of her feet! One foot is straight on and the other is sideways. Can’t wait to see those little feet and toes myself!

Only one minor concern was brought up during the ultrasound. She has some fluid around each of her kidneys that shouldn’t be there. The u/s tech and the doctor both said it’s fairly common and often corrects itself prior to birth. Basically the concern is that the urine in her bladder is backing back up into her kidneys, which it obviously shouldn’t do. Should she be born with that still posing a problem, she’ll likely have a lot of UTIs (urinary tract infections) for the first 6 months of her life or so. No fun and lots of antibiotics!

We’ll have another ultrasound around 30 or 32 weeks to check on the fluid and see if it’s corrected itself. If the fluid is not gone then baby girl will have an ultrasound herself after she’s born so they can see if that is indeed the issue. Then she’ll be put on antibiotics and sent to a specialist. The doctor said surgery is not usually a solution and they just wait for it to correct itself.

I’m not worrying about it, so you shouldn’t be either! Got it? Good.

Now comes the fun part for me! I already have a general nursery decor plan in mind (it involves lots of pictures of flowers I took this summer and last) and am excited to start making paint selections, figuring out curtains, etc.

Did I mention I’m also excited to shop for dresses and pink and purple things? Cause I am… I went into to Target the other day to pick something up and had to walk quickly past the baby section so that I wouldn’t get sucked in. I just didn’t have the time to browse and be tempted!

While we do essentially have to “start over” in the collecting of baby stuff (and we would have had to do that if it had been a boy too because I’ve already given away or sold virtually everything ‘baby’), it will be fun. I bought a crib through a consignment sale in July, so that’s taken care of. (Yeah, we gave all three of the boys’ cribs away just 3 weeks before we found out I was pregnant. Figures, huh?) Everything else though, infant seat, stroller (a single! Woohoo!), a swing, an activity mat, exersaucer, etc will all have to be found. If you have an infant seat or stroller that you just loved, I’d love the recommendation! Knowing how obsessed I was with my minivan excel spreadsheet to compare costs and features, you can be sure I’ll be watching for the hottest deal possible over the coming months!