18 weeks & prayers!

 Baby sure is growing! And so is my belly! Again, can't believe how quickly I grew this time! I look about how I did at 25 weeks with Viv! Other than size, the pregnancies have been pretty similar. Makes me wonder if it's another girl? Head to rump, baby bird is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and weighs almost 7 ounces. He/she is busy flexing his/her arms and legs which I can clearly feel. Haven't felt Baby Bird kick from the outside yet, but it's coming! 

Big bad symptom of the week is my aching back! Part of it is normal pregnancy woe's due to the fact that my uterus is now about the size of a cantaloupe and is causing my body's center of gravity to shift, pulling the lower back forward and pushing the abdomen out. The other part is definitely because of a nearly 20 lb cutie who can't walk yet and needs/likes Mommy to carry her. Hubs has been wonderful and has given me several back rubs this week. Yay! It's also been nice that Vivienne has decided to be a VERY sleepy baby of late and is averaging more than 12 hours a night (once or twice it's been nearly 14hrs!) and taking 2 great naps! She must know that Mommy needs a nap every now and then too. It's heaven! I almost fear writing it down will jinx it!

This week we had our anatomy Ultrasound. Always fun to see Baby Bird wiggle and squirm! While still utterly amazing, we were little distracted by our other wiggly, squirmy baby. Viv wasn't as interested in the baby as we were, but she did say "baby" every time the Ultrasound Tech did. Adorable! As for the gender, we did not find out! Only time will tell who is in my tummy!

When we met with our doctor after the Ultrasound, she said that everything looked good except for a bowel abnormality. Ugh! Talk about a pit in my stomach right there! She said that baby has an echogenic bowel which basically means that the baby’s bowel was glowing as bright as his/her bones – indicating some sort of calcification. This shows up in less than 1% of second trimester ultrasounds and although 95% of the time, this is a fluke (just some imperfection in the ultrasound equipment) and the baby is totally normal and healthy, there is the slight chance that it’s the early sign of a dangerous medical problem like Downs Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis. She suggested that if we continued with the pregnancy (!?!?!) that we consider genetic testing and an amniocentesis to know for sure. Since the care of our pregnancy will not change because of the outcome of these tests, we have decided that it's not worth finding out now. 

We love Baby Bird just the Lord has knit him/her together in my womb to be. We believe that the Lord has a plan. And finding out about any abnormality will not affect my pregnancy in any way. That being said, we have another Ultrasound scheduled for next month to monitor the echogenic bowel which may, Lord willing, be normal. Baby Bird didn't have any other markers for Down's that came up in the Ultrasound. And, as far as we know, there isn't any Cystic Fibrosis in either of our families. So right now, nothing has changed except a renewed vigor to pray for Baby Bird. We may know more next month at the ultrasound. We may not know anything until August when Baby Bird is born. But one this is constant... "The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation." Exodus 15:2