He's here...

….Wow are we behind in posting. Here is a picture of Ayden from soon after he was born. He is about 17wks now. He has been a fussy little guy so far, but he is starting to mello out. Here is a picture of him.

38 weeks

We are at 38 weeks, no new pictures. Our little guy has dropped 5cm as of Monday and things are progressing and starting to take their course. We still have a lot to do in order to be ready. I just kept thinking there would be more time, guess I should take a life lesson out of that. We are very excited to meet our little guy, he has been a real character through this pregnancy. We've watched him grow and develop and we feel like we already know him. So now to actually meet him is much more interesting. We just hope all goes well for mom and baby. The name is set, thank you to everyone who voted. We will announce it when he is born, I will say that there is a twist so stay tuned.

36 weeks…wow…time is going fast

36 wks!! Holy crap….this is gonna happen. We're finally starting to step up our preparations. We went stroller shopping as we now will need a double stroller. I didn't realize it was going to be like buying car. So many options, none of them exactly right.

Here is how they stacked up:

#1: $750.00 loved the maneuverability but the baby in the back can't see anything.
#2: $739.00 Much more adjustable, but sucks to fold up as you have to remove one seat and it requires two hands to fold, oh and it's $739.00 that is crazy!!
#3. $239.00 a bit like an SUV of strollers, big and bulky but gets the job done. Also has a one hand twist that folds and unfolds the entire thing. Both babies can see ok. However, the place we went to (I won't mention the name) only seemed interested in selling the really expensive ones and didn't even really want to show us the cheaper one. We had to grab it ourselves and demo it ourselves. We decided we still needed to do more research. UGh……it's just a stroller right? If anybody has any suggestions we would love to hear them.

35 wks

Well, we've been slacking again. We got a picture of our little guy at 35wks, but just barely. My parents came to visit from Florida and wanted to see him, and he decided to be facedown/headdown and we got the back of an ear. We gave him a few days and he turned enough for us to get a couple shots.

32 wks

Here are a couple shots from 32 wks. I'm doing two updates in one day. So not much new to report. He has really been kicking a lot and this point is one of the more active times during pregnancy. As things go forward babies start to run out of room and so the movement can become more subdued.

31 wks

We're trying to get some pictures each week now as he will be steadily putting on weight and filling up what little space is left. We'll see how far we go and still get good shots. Up until a week ago he had about 4 outfits, so we finally went shopping. Boy's clothes are really limited, seems you have the choice of: Monkeys, music stuff, some supposedly pithy phrase like "Daddy's little slugger", or sports teams stuff. We finally bought him a few more things, we did find a golf shirt type onesie and had our logo embroidered on it so he will have his official Enlightened office outfit. :-)

I told Sheri the money we save on clothes will just go somewhere else (like a boat) :-)

30 weeks and 1 day

I keep saying how fast time is going, here are some pictures for our update. Last time our little guy was in a breech position, we're happy to announce that he has now moved back into a head down (vertex) position. He hid behind mom for a bit but we got him to move around and got some pictures! It will be fun to see how many weeks we can continue to get shots. Is it just me or does he look really cranky?

3 Vessel Cord

I thought it would be cool so show some pictures of the 3 vessel cord along with a color doppler shot so people can see how the blood flowing threw the cord looks. This is at 30wks 1 day.

30 wks!!

Wow! We are 30 wks, this is a big deal because the percentage of early delivery complications takes a big jump in our favor. We have no reason to believe this baby will be early, but it's nice to feel a little bit more secure in the health of the baby. Everything has gone so smooth this pregnancy. We lost a baby last Feb of 2010, so as parents we find many creative ways to worry, however, overcoming a loss makes us that much better at worrying. Must say it's been really nice to be able to "check in" on our little guy more often. Speaking of that, we need to do that pretty soon. Maybe we'll be able to today or Saturday and we'll post some new pictures.

Oh, he still only has about 3 outfits so we really should start doing some shopping. I told Sheri that whatever money we don't spend on clothes will get spent somewhere else later (like a boat) :-). Boys save you money in some areas, but it just goes other places I figure.

27 wks, still a boy and growing like a weed!

Well, time is moving so fast. We have now moved our offices and finally got a chance to fire things up and take another peek at our little boy, (not so little anymore). I looked back at the earlier pictures and am just amazed at the continuing transformation that is at work. What a miracle….that's really all I can say about it. We are trying to keep our selves in check, but we are getting very excited to meet this little guy. We wonder what he will be like, how his personality will be unique from his brothers and sisters…so many things…and we know the time goes so fast. Riley (18months) is so nice. She gives him little kisses and rubs lotion on him at night. She seems aware that there is a baby, but is still convinced he might be in her tummy to. I can't help but think of them growing up and all things I want to do with them, it will be different knowing our older kids won't be around then but hopefully it will keep us young a little bit longer (or we're in big trouble).

On a more clinical note he has turned breech now, which we were a little surprised about. At 27 weeks that isn't a big deal, but we would prefer he flip back around anytime. Riley was head down the whole time and we figured it gave her more blood flow to her brain and she is smart as a whip…so again….this little guy can flip around anytime. :-)

24 wks finally some new pictures

Well, we are just over 24 wks now. Finally had a bit of time to get some more pictures. He started out hiding behind the placenta, but we got him to move around and give us some shots. Definitely looking like a baby now, and it was the first time we actually had all of the kids together to see the baby. Ryan actually hadn't seen an ultrasound before, guess he managed to duck out every other time, that's teenage boys for you. The kids all really enjoyed seeing their little brother. Riley (18 months) said hi to him. Stuck her finger in the ultrasound gel, and then went to sleep by Sheri. We decided that he has dad nose (poor kid) and we are still undecided about a butt chin, but there may be a slight chance of that. We'll investigate this further with future scans.

To clip or not to clip..

Well we are slacking again with getting pictures. With the holidays and being busy we just haven't had a chance. However, we are now in another debate. To clip or not to clip, at first I was pro clipping. Sheri is set against it, and the more I research the less I'm convinced it's something we want to do. This is a subject that I've rarely heard people discuss, maybe you ladies do, however us guys definitely don't. I may post some links in the upcoming days and see what people are thinking and doing. Tomorrow we may have a chance to get some new pictures of our little boy. Should be getting very close to looking like an actual baby now.

20 week pictures. 2D & 3D gender!!

Well, now it's official. We've had a pretty good idea from 11 wks, 14wks still looked very good, 17wks really had no question, now at 20wks there is no point in putting it off.

Now it's just figuring out the name, so people are welcome to keep voting and we'll continue to post pictures as this baby grows. He is now just in-between alien and baby, a few more weeks and we'll really start getting some good looks at this little guy. Can't believe 3 weeks went by so fast, time just keeps flying by. We really want to enjoy each moment as this is certainly our last, but admittedly it's difficult sometimes.

It's a boy!!!

Awe man! We have been so busy with life and business we haven't had time to update pictures. I'm gonna have to just schedule sheri for an appointment. Anyway, it's been long enough so we should at least say we are having a boy. Sheri still hasn't felt the baby because of the anterior placenta this time. We'll post some new pictures soon :-).

17wks, last chance for gender vote

Well...time is flying by. We are 17 wks plus now. Gender is pretty clear as far as I'm concerned, but we'll give people one more look before we totally give it away. :-)

Things have been going very well, blood tests so far have been great and sheri is tired, but overall feeling pretty good considering.

14 wks, 3D Pics and gender...we'll see if you can guess it.

14 wks, finally took time to take a few more pictures. Amazing how much the baby has grown. We could see the brain structure which looks very good. Took time to count all fingers and toes, look at the spine, and structure of the heart and all looks very well. Also, took a gender shot to follow up on my 11wk genital tubercle look.

Still a little sea monkey, but it's our sea monkey and we're very excited about each step of the process. We added a new name that we hadn't considered when we started the voting process.

Oh, heart rate was 157. For anyone trying to correlate that with gender.

Welcome to the 2nd tri!

Tonight I just found out that sheri has slept through the last however many weeks of our favorite shows. She just now realized how much she actually missed, to which I replied "hey hun welcome back to your life and into the second trimester".

13 wk NT test....not awesome!

Well, we had our first medical screening. Walking out it was odd to think that used to be all there was. We wonder if it really was as bad as we thought or if we would have thought it was awesome years before. The lady was pretty crabby, and had a hard time getting the shot for the NT. It was right there...I could see it...I wanted to help her, but I sat silent. Finally she got the shots, confirmed that it was great (we already knew that).

The room was set up so it was hard to see, they had an extra screen but it was small and across the room. The grainy pictures that were on the heat roller paper were hardly worth looking at. She probably thought we didn't care, because we hardly glanced at them. I asked a couple questions and the lady got super defensive and asked if I worked in the medical field since I knew the terms. I said yes, and then she quickly ended the scan.

It was cool to see the baby, but wow what a difference from what we do, to what gets done there. We'll post some pictures from our medical scan just for reference but we have to find time scan them into our computer since we didn't get a CD of jpg images. Oh, and we're going to get a bill for $1,500 for this, what a kicker. I was going to ask if she could look at the gender tubercle, for an early gender screening but the lady was way too crabby for that. I was curious if she would find what I found.

Heart rate 155 (has nothing to do with gender, just gestational age) it will decrease as this baby grows. We are happy that everything checked out well, and I fully understand the pressure diagnostic techs have. At the same time I think this makes us even more determined to make sure people's visit with us the polar opposite of that. As we walked out Sheri, commented...wow they sure don't tell you much. I had also forgotten that when we did some scans at our office I was teasing her and said she had placenta previa and would probably need a C-section, so she swatted me for making her worry. I can't even blame that on pregnancy brain, I'm sure Sheri will get me back.

Time to Share...12wks and counting.

So today we are inviting people to our baby site. Many of you have shared your pregnancy with us, so we thought it would only be fair to share ours with you. This is Number five for our household. We have Adryan 17, Ryan 16, Taylor 13, Riley 1....and a yet to be determined little one. We are currently just over 12 wks and anxiously waiting (like many of you) to figure out gender. I think I've got it already, but I'm still going to wait till we are sure before disclosing that.

I'll probably post some gender shots later, and let people see if they learned anything from visiting us and make guesses what they think. We are also very stuck with regard to a name, so we listed some choices and welcome your votes. Things can change and the wining vote doesn't mean that is what we'll go with, but right now sheri and I each have our favorites so maybe your votes will help break the stalemate.

Welcome everyone, thanks for stopping by (even if for nothing more then voyeuristic curiosity). :-)

p.s. Just because we have 3d scans at early ages, I don't want people to start booking appointments at 12wks. Please wait until at least 16 for gender, and preferably 23 for 3D/4D. As you'll see right now the babies look more like a mouse then a cute baby, but it gets way cooler as we go along. This is for us to share, I hope it's informative and interesting to others.

You can see now the babies legs are officially longer then the arms. Some of the earlier pictures they weren't, we'll point out more developmental markers as we go along.

10 wks, 9wks, 7wks!!

The other day we saw the babies hands, feet, and listen to the heartbeat. We also saw our baby moving around for the first time. Hands punching, legs kicking...It was so cool, even for me who does this everyday. It's so different when it's your own. We got some really neat 3D pictures as well. I'll post some, but figured I should write something for an update.

Another baby

It appears we have another new arrival on the horizon. So much has changed since Little Riley who is now 14 months. We once again will get to watch this baby develop except now we own one of the most advanced ultrasound systems on the planet, and tonight we were able to see and hear a heartbeat at 6 weeks. Still very early, but we'll keep a close eye on this one. We're both happy about it, but being cautious before saying anything until things progress a little further. However, we wanted to start documenting things for ourselves, and to share later.