3D Ultrasound pictures

Here are 3D pictures of Brandon from our ultrasound tonight.  It was so amazing to see all the details of his face and body.   He was very camera shy, he kept putting both of his hands in front of his face and after a couple of minutes he started to kick (looked like he was doing an Irish jig and I could feel every little kick!)

What Pregnancy?

  Ashley was going to post something on her clumsiness and forgetfulness due to the pregnancy... but, well, I guess she forgot.

Week 25 Bump Watch!

Kicking it old school

    Brandon is an active baby, at least according to Ashley.  He kicks a lot and I am not sure if he is saying, "I like" or "I don't like" or "I'm awake!" or "HELLO!!!"  More importantly, I am not sure if this is an indication for things to come.  Is he going to be an active baby?  Will he sleep regularly?  Sort of hoping he will be easy going and a sleeper but starting to think he is going to be a non-stop ball of energy.  Excited to find out.   

Week 24 Bump!

Well for most of the people who read this blog you all know I was in Dublin this past week for a vocal competition.  This is my second competition and I went over to Ireland very excited and some what in denial about how Brandon would effect my singing.  For the past month I have been telling myself that I can do it and keeping my confidence high, and when the day of the competition came I sang my best, made a couple mistakes, but nothing that was completely horrible.  The fact of the matter was that my breathing technique is completely suffering from what seems to be a growth spurt from Brandon, I feel like he grew double in size in 2 days (this isn't the first time Ive felt like this (last time he grew really fast was between week 15-16)  I knew another growth spurt was coming I was just hoping it would wait until after next week, but baby waits for no one.   Singing wasn't difficult I just had to take a couple emergency breaths and that of course made the vocal line suffer.    Another huge dilemma, besides hiding growing belly, was the fact that the other singers in the competition were just amazing, I can't remember the last time I heard so much talent in 2 days, there was no one thing wrong with any performance, I knew the judges had to make some tough decisions and if I were to me eliminated it was not because I was not bad it was just the way the competition had to go, I was also right in the middle of the age group of singers...youngest being 21 and oldest being 31.  Many of the singers to advance were between 27-31, with 1 or 2 younger than that.


Sooo my singing is being put on hold until Brandon comes.  I'm going to continue to study but no performances or auditions until I'm back in tip top vocal shape!!

So Paul posted pictures of what we brought home with us Saturday.  I thought I'd find some pictures of the things we ordered so you all can get an idea of what we have.  Below is a picture of the stroller we bought, the chair detaches and you can click the bassinet into the frame.  Another great thing is that you can also click our car seat into the frame of this stroller with a single attachment.  Having something simple like this makes traveling in a small car possible because we only have to bring one piece with us and the frame can fold us nicely in the trunk of the car.   But we did not buy it for the car, we live in a city and are trying to plan on moving to Arlington, VA (both are very pedestrian friendly with metros, sidewalks, ect ect ect.   So even when we move back if we buy a smaller than the average sized American vehicle we'll we okay.  


The crib, changing table, and wardrobe are so pretty, but the pictures below show the model room set up for a girl, so just imagine blue in place of all that pink!  Sorry for the small pictures it was all I could find on the website!!!  Once we get the furniture and set up the room we'll take nursery pictures!


*The pictures of the stroller and bassinet below are not the exact colors we picked out

Just Looking

   Today we went to Prenatal, the Baby store near us, to "look" at furniture, strollers, clothes, etc.  So we can decide what we want to pick up in the coming months before Brandon arrives.  When we got to the store, Ashley asked some questions about strollers and the sales lady was very helpful and mentioned that if we ordered today, we could get it in 6-8 weeks.  Same for furniture.  Ashley will be in Ireland next weekend for a competition, meaning we wouldn't be ordering until the weekend after (I am not dumb enough to go furniture shopping without Ashley's opinion) and that would put delivery into April.  So we decided to order the furniture now, and since we were ordering something today, we should also order the stroller, and if we get the stroller might as well as throw in the car seat.  In the end, "just looking" turned into buying a crib, changing table, wardrobe, cradle, car seat, stroller, and doomoo baby seat.  Fortunately, they were having a sale... but still. 

     Thing on the right is the DooMoo seat, left is car seat and center back is the cradle.  Special thanks to our models.     

It's official!

Brandon Daniel Kelly  is his name!

Bump Watch!

They say our baby can weigh between 1 1/2-2lbs and is about 8 1/2 inches long (standard letter size!!)

If we were wondering what (and who) Brandon will look like?  we'd almost be able to tell by now.  That beautiful face (though still tiny) is almost fully formed.  What's still missing from the picture is the fat that will be piled on under baby's skin.  Until those fat deposits are made, that very tender skin is still very transparent, which means a close look would let you see clear through to all the organs, bones, and blood vessels. Fortunately, that see-through look won't last much longer. Babies at this stage of fetal development are gaining about six ounces each week — with much of that gain coming from fat, in addition to growing organs, bones, and muscle.  With in the next month Brandon will double in weight.  Luckily for opera mommy's sake she will not.  According to my midwife for the next 16 weeks I should gain about 1lb a week.

We got a 3-4D ultrasound appointment for Jan 28th....after about 1 month of the office not answering phones they were finally back!   So excited to get to see Brandon in 3D!!!

baby take it easy

This past week was just horrible.  It was the first time I hated being pregnant.  Please do not misinterpret this, I love our baby growing inside me, I just wished he could have exited my body for the week while I got over this awful cold, both Paul and I caught.

The plus side of both of us being sick was we did not have worry about getting the other sick with what we have since we have it at the same time, but the down side was that I could not take ANY medicine besides Tylenol and I have to limit that as much as possible because my midwife doesn't like it.

Things took a turn for the worse on Friday night, I tried to go to bed at 10:30 because I needed to wake up at 7 to get ready and drive to Arnhem.  But between my coughing, sneezing, and runny nose.  AND the worse sinus pressure in my face I've ever felt I didn't sleep all night.   I got out of bed at 7 and was super emotional which only made my coughing and runny nose worse.  Paul calmed me down and I decided that doing a weekend master class was not the best thing for my body, I especially have to think about Brandon now and 2 days of a 9:30-6PM master class 1 1/2 hours from home was not an option.  So I called and canceled.  The entire weekend I thought about what everyone was doing in the class and how it was to work with the teacher who came up from Paris,  I ended up sleeping from 9AM until 2PM.  I was very happy yo get an email from the organizer of the master class offering me a deal to still work with this voice teacher if I go to her in Paris.  I'm not sure if I will take the deal but I think if I go to Paris again before Brandon is born is would still be wonderful to meet her and have some tea.


Today was the first morning I woke up from a full nights sleep, you can only imagine the bags that have been under my eyes from the weekend.  My sinus pains have gone, I am hoping they are gone for good, I never want to experience them again.   But this week I am taking it easy, my only goal for today was getting oranges from the grocery store, getting organized for the Dublin competition next week, and making dinner.  It's also just to cold and icy outside to want to window shop or take a walk.

News

This morning we had our 22 week appointment.  I knew going into this one it was going to be long because of the large measurement of our baby's belly at our 20 week ultrasound.   The results for now just mean tests.  In 4 weeks I need to go blood work done to test my blood sugar levels to see if I've developed high blood sugar.  If I do have this condition it just means that our baby will grow to big and will make birth complicated, good news is that my high blood sugar is only temporary and will not effect Brandon after he is born, but for now I just have to keep a low sugar/low fat diet.  I also need to have another ultrasound at 28 weeks to check on the baby to see if he is growing at the rate he should, I'm happy we get to see Brandon again!!!

We're also hoping to get a 3D ultrasound this month if there is time.  But first I want to try and shake off this head cold I have.  I asked our midwife if there was anything I could take, but she said no just like I thought she would.

Baby bump watch

Finally had time to take week 22 picture today and then put last weeks up on the blog.  This our last night with the Christmas tree, tomorrow after our midwife appointment I'm going to spend my day collecting and putting away all the decorations.   We'll have to find a cool new place to do my weekly baby bump picture.

We're getting really excited, every week that passes is just one closer to meeting Brandon!!!!

Baby Brandon

So after debates, lists, books, and hours of discussion Paul and I have decided that our little baby boy's name will be Brandon.  We are still between 2-3 names for his middle name, we want to keep the middle name in the family, so Daniel, Edward, Peter, Patrick, Stefen, and some others are ones we are thinking of as a middle name.

It's so nice to put a name to our baby.  We got used to calling baby a "him" for the past 2 weeks and while calling baby a him we just wanted to come up with a name so we could begin using his name all the time.

I would love input from everyone who reads this on what they think of our middle name ideas.

Brandon Daniel Kelly
Brandon Edward Kelly
Brandon Peter Kelly
Brandon Patrick Kelly
Brandon Stefan Kelly