Ofie is "Perfect"

Well we are back from our 21 week ultrasound and the verdict is Ofie is perfect or so the Ultrasound tech says. She has 10 fingers, 10 toes, and everything she needs to have and is quite fiesty. I had an orange beforehand so she'd be cooperative and move around and boy did she like the orange. She was squirming, covering her face, and hiccuping. However, she was a bit of stinker and didn't want to roll over at all so it took awhile to get the pictures of the spine they wanted. The tech was even able to tell us that the baby has high arches on her feet, wow the technology is amazing. Due to the location of the placenta they said that I am feeling much more movement than most people, I'm sort of hoping that doesn't mean the later kicks will be more painful. Still neither Brian nor Gretchen has felt her movements, but it will be soon.

Unfortunately, the scanner at work does not scan the pictures well so I'm going to try at mom and dad's tomorrow on their scanner. The pictures are beautiful, you can see a wonderful profile of the face with distinct nose and mouth. We also have a 3D picture, very crazy looking. We were also surprised to find out that we get another ultrasound at 32 weeks, so that was exciting news. Our next appointment is not until April 14th. Now that I know Ofie is healthy I feel confident to start preparing the house for her arrival, so we'll be busy in the next few weeks registering, buying furniture, moving the office to the basement so we have a baby room, etc.

If you have just joined our blog we want to let you know that Ofie's gender is remaining a mystery until July when we meet her so she will remain Ofie and be referred to as her until then. Since I feel like I have done practically nothing to prepare for Ofie's arrival yet I feel I must share that I am catching up on my scrapbooking and this weekend am heading to Wisconsin for the annual Scrappy Ladies "Brechon" Family Scrapbook weekend (3 full days and 3 nights of pure scrapbook fun). I am hopeful I will be all caught up on my scrapbooking so that come July I am ready to scrapbook all the millions of pictures we will inevitably take of Ofie.

I am attaching pictures of me at 21 weeks 4 days. Slowly but surely Ofie is making her presence known to the outside world.

Week 21!

Wow how time flies, we're already in week 21 which means over the half way point and we are no closer to being ready for Ofie's arrival than before. We have an offer in on a house, since it's a short sale we are anticipating a lengthy wait to hear whether they accept our offer. The seller's realtor is hopeful they may have an answer for us within 30 days, which would mean the end of March, our realtor said that would be a miracle if it happened that fast.

Ofie is doing well and she seems to be moving around more now, or she's just getting big enough for me to feel it more often (probably more the case). I just went to Seattle for a conference for work and Ofie did a lot of dancing around during turbulence, everytime my stomach dropped so did hers, she probably wondered what in the world I was doing. We are very excited because on Tuesday we have our big ultrasound. We'll post pictures as soon as we can afterwards as well as new belly shots because it's definitely growing more. Simple things like leaning forward are harder when your belly grows, this is going to take some getting used to.

We are excited that in the next few weeks we'll be visiting family and friends and meeting for the first time some of what will become Ofie's friends. Our friends Mary and Julian had a baby in early February, Kayleigh, and our other friends Erin and Ben had a baby a week ago, Adalyn.

House Shopping Part II and belly picture

Well we went out house shopping again yesterday and saw two houses that we could see ourselves in. They were not houses we put on our well maybe we could live there list, but we could both envision our things there. Best part is both have room to grow and with some paint and TLC (but not too much) we'd be great. After talking, talking, and a good night of sleep we've decided we are going to put an offer in on one of the houses this week. It's a short sale which means it's pre-foreclosure so the bank is very meticulous about the sale and from offer to accepting (if they do) it can take months. We have the time to wait so we're going forward with an offer. We'll keep you posted on if this works. Cross your fingers though because it would be a great house for us and our growing family!

We have been taking belly pictures every few weeks since about 10 weeks, but there was nothing very noticeable until now. Still kind of just looks like I gained weight, but it's definitely Ofie. I have also just begun feeling her kick and move around, and boy does she have a party in there sometimes. Brian is anxious for when he will get to feel the kicks. Only 16 more days until our big ultrasound!