19 week stats!

Your Baby This Coming Week
(fyi...these updates will switch back and forth between "he" and "she" from week to week.)

Your baby weighs about 9 ounces (260g) and measures about 5.6 to 6.4 inches (14 to 16cm) from crown to rump.

Her skin is thickening and developing multiple layers- the epidermis and the dermis, the deeper layer where it will form fat. Your baby is now also developing a waxy protective coating for her skin called vernix caseosa. The vernix protects your baby's skin which is continuously submersed in amniotic fluid. Vernix, which is particularly thick around the eyebrows is held in place by tiny downy hairs called lanugo.

Your baby can now grip with her fists. Toenails and scalp hair are growing.

At this point, it may be possible to determine the baby's sex by ultrasound, if the baby cooperates.

You can hear the baby's heartbeat with a Doppler ultrasound device or a stethoscope.

New to this....here it goes!

Well, at the insistance of several friends, I am going to start this blog for our precious little one. We invite you to share with us our experience as we walk through these next few months of waiting for this wonderful new life that God has blessed us with.

A little background... We found out at the beginning of March that we were pregnant, only to discover the devasting news just a few days later that I was miscarrying. I can tell you right now that I have never felt pain like that! Not physically so much as emotionally and spiritually. The blessing in everything, though is that it never really occurred to me to be mad at God. And I took comfort in knowing that He held the little one that I would have to wait to see.

Well needless to say, we didn't plan on trying right away again. I had been using the basal body temperature method of charting cycles, but the doctor recommended that I put the thermometer away for the cycle after miscarrying. So, I did. Well, low and behold, six weeks later still no sign of the "Aunt Flo", so on a whim I bought a pregnancy test from the Dollar Tree. (who knew they sold those there?) Well, the test came up VERY positive, and I was a little nervous to say the least.

We had the pregnancy confirmed through an ultrasound that measured the baby at 6 weeks old. And our due date was officially placed at Christmas Day! What an unexpected gift after such pain of loss! Nathan and I could not have been happier!

I am now 19 weeks along, and we have 8 days until our BIG 20 week ultrasound that will determine the gender! I can't wait to be able to call this little one a he or a she, and not "it".

We hope you enjoy this journey with us! More updates to come!