Once again, I apologize to you for being distant lately! Everything is fine. It just seems that I spend all day on the computer at work, so when I get home, the last thing I want to look at is the computer.

I had plans to show you "the bump" at 14, 15 and 16 weeks, but it seems my camera had other ideas. Sometime between this weekend and today, my camera decided to erase all of my pictures. Pictures that started with the day we found out - the obligatory pics of the pee stick...then the random snow we had in Birmingham, with some cute video of the Monkey playing in the snow. And then there were the baby bump pictures that I was going to put in my "Belly Book" ~ But alas...not now! They have magically disappeared, never to be seen again.

So I'll start with this week...week 17. And from now on I will not leave a plethora of pictures on my camera without downloading them to my computer. I'd get upset, but what good will that do? Bring my pictures back? I doubt it!

So the baby has grown from a mere poppy seed to the size of an onion...although it feels much larger than that! Not round, but just the length/weight. Baby's skeleton is hardening, changing from rubbery cartilage to bone, and fat is finally accumulating around it. The umbilical cord is getting thicker and stronger, and those little fingers and toes are now topped by one-of-a-kind prints. And the ears are starting to function...so we have started talking to the bump. It's comical.

We went today for our monthly checkup. Everything was normal. The doc got a new Doppler machine that doesn't record the heart rate, so we got to hear it, but we don't know how fast it was. Sounded fast to me.

Then Owen surprised me and asked the doc if we could have an 'unscheduled' ultrasound. Cost's extra, but we considered it my mother's day present. The doctor obliged, and put us in line to see the tech.

There were no measurements or anything - that's at the next appointment - but we got to see the little bugger literally doing somersaults, stand on its head and shoot us the bird. And in true Prescott style, the baby sat Indian-style, or with the legs underneath for most of the time.

It was so amazing to watch. Definitely lets you know that there is a God. There's no other way something so miraculous can happen. There's just not.

We got some good pics, but when I tried to scan them in, I couldn't make it work right, so I grabbed my trusty camera and took pictures of the pictures. Never a good idea, but it's the only way I can share them with you. Don't worry. I've already downloaded them to my PC, in case the camera decides to get squirrely again.

So here's a little slide show of the ultrasound pictures thus far...

Labels: Baby P, Boy or Girl?