New Pictures of MJ

If there's anyone out there still reading this blog, you know that it's been awhile since I've posted anything. I wish I had a good excuse. It's not that I've been too busy -- on the contrary, I've had too much time on my hands and can't figure out what to do with all of it.

I had another doctor's appointment last week and got to hear MJ's heartbeat for the first time (I was 13 1/2 weeks at the time of the visit). The heartbeat was surprisingly rhythmic for that early in my pregnancy. That same afternoon, I had another ultrasound. This one was a little more involved than the first one, as they were measuring the thickness of MJ's neck as part of a Down's syndrome screening. (Everything turned out fine with that screening, by the way.) I got to see a close-up of the head, and could pick out facial features clearly, such as a nose and mouth. Here's that picture, although it's pretty blurry and kind-of hard to see since it's so close-up. MJ is facing upward, with the top of the head on the left, the chin on the right.

MJ kept moving his/her fist toward and away from his/her mouth during the ultrasound. In the picture above, the fist is at the very top of the picture, right about at thumb-sucking level with the mouth. I also have a couple other pictures that are clearer. I couldn't believe how much MJ had grown since the last ultrasound four weeks ago. Here are the more recent pictures:


I also think these ones are a little bit easier to read (than the first one was) for people who aren't familiar with ultrasound pictures.

I have another regular appointment in about 3 weeks, and my doctor said that we'll schedule the full anatomy ultrasound for a couple of weeks after that, which is when we'll find out of MJ is a boy of a girl. That should be around the beginning of the year -- maybe the last week of December.