16 Weeks: Kicks and Gender

Little Newbie2 is 16 weeks old! Well, gestationally speaking.

The biggest excitement of this week is that I felt the little guy kick for the first time! I kept waiting for the butterfly tap-tapping feeling, but felt more of a rolling instead, so I wasn't sure if I was feeling baby or not. Then, last Thursday, *thump!* a sound little kick! Hey, little guy! I've felt him a few times since then as well.

Speaking of "him," we're pretty sure we're having a boy. I know, I know, where's the drama and the polls and the guessing, right? Well, we had a sonogram at 14 weeks (yes, I've had this information for over 2 weeks), and we're pretty darn sure we've got a little boy in there. We'll have another sonogram on Wednesday and hopefully we'll confirm that.

A boy! On the way to the sonogram appointment, I had a fleeting thought, "I've been wanting a boy, but if I had a girl, it sure would be fun to get all that attention!" I know, so motherly, right? Well, I have to admit a very slight bit of disappointment that we would not be swimming in brand new pink fluffy things and reveling in the joy of bringing the first girl grandchild on either side of the family. But I felt a huge sense of relief about trying to figure out sleeping arrangements, and I'd say Newbie2, as the fourth boy in the family, is pretty well set in the way of clothes and toys. So exciting.

Of course, that brings up the naming issue. We have a girl name all picked out; we decided it when we decided on Caleb--back before we were even married! But a boy name? Nothin'. Nada. Clean slate. Since we didn't have to deal with the name game when we were pregnant with Caleb, this is new territory for us. I think we've made pretty good headway as far as narrowing things down. Jon wants a name with a good story. I like "Jack" but it doesn't come with a good story, other than it's the name of a great uncle I never met. "Jackson" on the other hand, might qualify, as he was the greatest general of the Civil War, according to my husband (whom I will never question in regards to Civil War facts). We used to laugh about naming our son "Jackson Lee." Talk about a story to tell!

To back up a few paragraphs, you might be wondering about our insurance situation and why I'm having frequent sonograms. First, the sonograms: a friend of ours at our church volunteers once every two weeks at the pregnancy crisis center here. Since she is such an infrequent volunteer, she doesn't get much of a chance to do sonograms. She wants to stay in practice--staying familiar with how to measure head circumference, calculate age, and take other measurements that are routine in a sonogram. So, she offers free sonograms to anyone pregnant in the church. We've been able to get sonograms every two weeks starting at 10 weeks. She'll stop doing them around 20 weeks, because at that point the baby is too large for her to take the measurements she would normally take for a new pregnancy. Best of all, we've been able to record every sonogram! It's been so neat to see how much Newbie2 has grown each time we go in, and to see him stretch and wiggle...and even scratch his heinie once. Yes, eventually that will make it up on the blog.

It's been such a blessing, since we have not been able to see a doctor since we've moved here. Every two weeks we check in on our little guy, see his heartbeat and how much he's grown, and we know that things are okay.

On the insurance front, we have good news! The company we'd applied with (that denied us) has an alternate plan that will work well for us. We're approved for it, and it won't be any extra cost to us. It's like we'll all be on individual plans, so the premium will go up when Newbie2 arrives, but for now we'd be paying about the same. Jon's appeal to the denial is still under consideration, so there's still a chance that we could be approved for the family plan. Either way, we have insurance! Praise God! I'd been researching midwives and bracing myself for doing this thing the old-fashioned way. I'm not particularly opposed to a home birth, but it seems like the kind of thing I need to be gung ho about for more reasons than just financial.

And how am I doing at 16 weeks? Based on my calculations, I've gained 11.5 pounds, though that seems to fluctuate some. Looking back at my progress with Caleb at 16 weeks, I'd gained 5 pounds by this point in my pregnancy. With that pregnancy, I started out about 15 pounds heavier, so I'm not sure if that factors in or not. I'd also just switched all my normal clothes for maternity at this point, whereas I'm not quite to that point this time around. I've got a couple pairs of maternity pants that I've been rotating, but the others are too big, and maternity shirts are still out of the question. Maybe in the next week or two. It'll be fun to pull out all those clothes again and see if Karen has added anything...though she's still in some of them, too! I can't believe that the two of us are sharing our stash of maternity clothes, and I've still got a huge Rubbermaid bin full! We are blessed.

Our family is blessed! I am continuously grateful for the Lord's provision in our lives!