16 week appointment

We had our 16 week appointment on Monday and it went great! Heartbeat sounded good, had blood drawn for the Quad Screen (a screening test for neural tube defects and chromosomal abnormalities) and SET UP OUR APPOINTMENT FOR THE GENDER SCAN!! (Can you tell I'm a little excited? haha)

We are scheduled to have our 20 week ultrasound on September 17th and are really, really excited to find out whether little Marvs is a girl or boy! We're going to have to decide on what cute way we want to share the news so there may be a couple days delay before we announce it, but rest assured, we definitely won't be able to keep it a secret for long!

Our appointment this week was actually our first appointment with our new midwife and we really liked the experience! We were originally seeing an OB/GYN that I had been to for routine care but after a few visits with their practice and becoming familiar with their physicians and policies, decided to look around at other options. My original doctor there was amazing and we really enjoyed her but the practice requires all patients to be seen on a rotating basis by all three of the physicians and we really didn't like one of them. Enough so that we decided we would be seriously upset if she ended up delivering the baby and thought it was best to look elsewhere.

Look out for another post with details on how we chose the midwifery service, the hospital we'll deliver at, and our choices for birth and prenatal care!

I've also gotten my hands on the first book I'm reading specifically to prepare for labor. I realized that I had been reading (both for school and myself) a TON about pregnancy but I hadn't dove into labor preparation yet. Since I'm a bona-fide over-preparer, I figured 4 months in was as good a time as any! I have about 5 books on hold at the library and have spent the morning getting started on the first one, Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds by Cynthia Gabriel. I am a nerd and I am excited! :)

I'm really hoping to deliver naturally using non-interventional methods of pain relief (like Lamaze and water laboring) and this book seemed like a great resource for those of us who might, in another life, have chosen to do a home birth but have decided to stick with the security of a hospital for one reason or another.

More to come soon: the 16 week photo (with a real bump now!), choosing a midwife post and some small nursery updates, and the beginning of our registry :) Oh yeah, and our inevitable Facebook reveal!

much love, L&N