Monday, May 17, 2010

Danielle is here!

Follow this link to Danni's blog and keep updated on her progress!

http://danielle-joann.blogspot.com/

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Just When I Thought I Knew It All...

I think it's safe to say that I (and my mother) have been to enough ultrasounds by now to say that we're pretty competent in figuring out what they're looking for, what they're looking at, and the terminology they use. But I guess not!

A fellow named Dick called us back for the ultrasound. I thought it might be a little weird having a guy do the ultrasound. Though, when I think about it, it's just my belly (and when it's not so big, it gets seen at the beach, so what's the big deal?). I think I was thinking about when they tuck the towel into my pants, but of course, since he's a guy, he just handed me a towel, and asked me to do it.

He checked the amniotic fluid levels, saw her movements, but had troubles (as sometimes happens) seeing her practice breathing. (Depending on her position, her heart beat, since it's so slow, makes it difficult to tell the difference between her heart and her breathing.) So he tried something else. He went down to her face and looked at her nose. He turned on the Doppler (the red and blue colors that they normally look at blood flow with). We could see red and blue amniotic fluid going in and out of her nose! We saw her take some small breaths and one big breath! It was pretty neat.

Mom then asked if we were supposed to have another growth ultrasound. Dick said that it wasn't in the chart to, but he could do it, just in case. (They had scheduled a slow day, because they had people coming in to upgrade their computer systems.) So he took all her measurements and said that she weighed about 7 pounds 1 ounce!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Baby Shower #3 - Adam's Family

We had our third and final baby shower today with Adam's family. Kitty & Kathy put on a lovely event at, what seems to have become, the Richter family gathering space. It was great to see both the men and women and kids of the family at the shower. Just as at most Richter family gatherings, there was food and people a-plenty, but this time there were many fun games also. We had a gift BINGO and lots of word scrambles, along with a mad libs story about the birth of our baby (who's name in the story turned out to be Elmo).

We were showered with gifts for baby, of course. I think Adam's favorite was a monkey backpack/harness that he had put on our registry. Though we really enjoyed getting Adam's baby blanket (made by his grandma Barb) and his baby moccasins from Adam's parents. Also, from my parents, we received the baptismal gown that my grandma Eleanor hand made for my dad, which I also wore. The gown was wrapped in a small quilt that she had also made out of scraps of fabric from a quilt project I had done when I was in high school (I coordinated the making of seventy-five quilts that were donated to Gillette's Children's Hospital in St. Paul).

Adam's monkey backpack/ harness

Adam's baby blanket made by Adam's
grandma Barb, and baby moccasins
(need to find a new lace for one of them!)

My dad's and my Baptismial gown,
hand made (she didn't have a
sewing machine at the time) by
my grandma Eleanor

Quilt made by my grandma Eleanor out of
scraps from a quilt project I did for Gillette's
Children's Hospital in St. Paul.