Baby Lowry Updates

This past week we had our big 20 week ultrasound where they not only confirm the gender, but also measure all of the baby’s bones and organs to make sure things are developing on track.  I am thrilled to report that everything looks perfect! 

Being a pediatric nurse and working with sweet children that have to overcome health obstacles makes me that much more thankful that so far everything looks good with our little one.  And since I specialize in cardiology, I paid extra close attention to the heart.  I was beyond relieved to see 4 healthy heart chambers, a right ventricular outflow tract, and a left ventricular outflow tract!  One of my cardiology doctor friends has offered to do a fetal echo for us, so in the next week or so we’ll get an even more detailed view of the baby’s heart.  

Now for the fun pictures!  Here, you can clearly see that it’s a boy!  (I’m sure one day when he’s older he’ll hate that I’ve posted this picture.)
 
I think he’s yawning in this one. 
Profile shot.

I’ll admit it – this one kinda creeps me out a bit – but it’s a view of his face straight on.  His head is on the left side, and he’s resting on his hand.  You can see his arm extending towards the middle of the picture, and it stops at his elbow. 

This was really amazing to see in the live motion.  We watched him suck his thumb, pause to yawn, and then go back to sucking his thumb.  It’s crazy to me that he’s literally just hanging out inside of me. 

We found out I have an anterior placenta, which explains why I haven’t been feeling a ton of fetal movement yet.  An anterior placenta means that the placenta is between my tummy and the baby, so any movements he makes go into the placenta which absorbs them like a pillow.  So it might be a few more weeks before I’m feeling big movements, although lately I’ve been feeling a few more twitches and bubbles, and that’s pretty cool.  He’s also breech right now, but the doctor says there’s still plenty of time for him to rotate into the correct position.   

And now for the weekly belly shots.
18 weeks:
 
19 weeks (and after a long day at work):
 
20 weeks:
 
Halfway there!

Happy 30th Birthday to me!!

I can’t believe it.  I’m actually 30 years old.  I remember being a kid and thinking the 17 year olds sitting with the youth group at church were SO grown up.  Ahh, how your perspective changes!  It’s true what they say:  With age comes wisdom.  And I proved that this year by successfully spreading out my birthday celebrations for an entire 10 days!

A few days before my birthday Logan and I celebrated with dinner at Trulucks, which is always a favorite.  A little birdie must have told the waitress that it was my birthday, because they brought me two incredible cupcakes – one carrot cake, and one double chocolate.    
 
After dinner we headed to the Meyerson to see Ben Folds perform with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  We love Ben Folds, and getting to hear him play backed by a symphony was an amazing experience.  He truly is a talented musician, in every sense of the word.  
I was able to get a picture of the symphony before the show started, but no pictures were allowed during the performance.  I tried to sneak one, but Logan caught me and I had to put my camera away.  :)

A few days later we celebrated again with my family, this time at my favorite Italian restaurant, Momo’s.  Not only is the food wonderful (they hand make their pasta from scratch daily), but the waiters are always so good to us.    
 
Logan snuck out of the house while I was getting ready and decorated our chairs with black balloons.  He’s been teasing me about being “old” now and really enjoying it since I’ve been doing the same to him for about 3 years now. 
Ross and Jessica.
 
Mom and Ross.
 
Logan and my Dad.

Since the next day was Father’s Day, my parents had a couple of gifts for Logan to open for the baby.  Love this sweet puppy dog onsie!

And some bibs.
 
My mom made brownies, and even cut out the stencil for the “30” powdered sugar decoration. 
On my actual birthday, Logan took the day off since we had our “big” sonogram that afternoon.  (More about that in the next post.)  We ended up looking at a few houses and then met my family for lunch (again!) before our appointment.  Jeff was also in town and met Logan and me for dinner at Brick House, which has amazing food.  We always love when Jeff visits!

And then finally, last night we celebrated at Taverna with Chris and Leslie, Whitney and Cody, and Mike and Leanne.  It was fun getting everyone together – so much fun that I forgot to take a single picture!

So I have to say, 30 has been treating me pretty well so far, and I’m really looking forward to everything this year has in store.  Lots of big and exciting changes!

Bachelorette Look-Alikes

Every season I promise myself it will be my last to watch the trash-tastic real life soap opera that is The Bachelor… but every season I am completely sucked back in.  I can’t help it.  There’s just something about watching crazy people “fall in love” after knowing each other for all of about 3 seconds that I can’t get enough of. 

That’s not the point though.  Today, the point is that this season ABC has cast several Bachelorette contestants that look exactly like a few B-List celebrities.  Allow me to demonstrate:

William…

…also goes by the name Josh Lucas and can best be viewed in the chick-flick favorite, Sweet Home Alabama.  
J.P….

…got his start many years ago, and is most known for his work in Clueless.  Stage name: Breckin Meyer.     
And, Constantine…
  
…clearly won’t win anyone over with his name, so he’ll try serenading his lady love, like his identical twin Josh Groban.

Balsamic-Glazed Filet Mignon

I recently ventured out in my cooking skills and decided to try my hand at filet mignon.  Luckily, Logan is a dream to cook for since he’ll generally oooohh and aaaahh over whatever I put in front if him, so I knew that even if it wasn’t Truluck’s quality, he’d probably be happy just to be eating steak.  :)  Turns out it was actually very good – and easy!  LOVE my cooking light cookbook Lyndsie got me for Christmas, which is where the majority of my recipes come from.  At Haley’s request, here is the recipe:  
Ingredients:
4       (4 ounce) beef tenderloin steaks
1/4   tsp salt
1/4   tsp freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
2      tsp bottled minced garlic
1/8   tsp crushed red pepper
3      tbsp dry sherry
2      tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1      tbsp balsamic vinegar
2      tsp honey

1.  Sprinkle both sides of steaks evenly with salt and black pepper.  Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add steaks to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.  (Mine required much longer than 3 minutes on each side, so I just kept flipping them and sticking the thermometer in them to check the temp.)  Remove steaks from pan; keep warm.

2.  Add garlic and red pepper to pan; sauté 30 seconds.  Add sherry to pan; bring to a boil.  Cook 30 seconds.  Add soy sauce and remaining ingredients; bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat, and cook 1 minute.  Serve with steaks. 

Yield:  4 servings.  (Serving size:  1 steak and about 1 tbsp sauce.)

Calories 215;  Fat 9.2g;  Protein 24g;  Carb 4.7g;  Fiber 0.1g;  Chol 70mg;  Iron 3.3mg;  Sodium 406mg;  Calc 9.7mg

Whew!

Well it’s been a busy month!  Between work, birthday celebrations (Happy Birthday Jessica!), doctor’s appointments, out of town family visits and bachelorette parties (Congrats Amanda!), it’s been a little crazy around here. 

A few weeks ago we celebrated Jessica’s birthday with the family at Chuy’s.  It turns out the manager there used to be the manager at our local Cyclone Anaya’s and is friends with Logan.  It was good to see him, and he definitely hooked us up.  Anyway, it was great to hang out with family, and some good Tex-Mex and Sprinkles cupcakes didn’t hurt either!

I also met up with some of my high school friends at Studio Movie Grill to see the movie Bridesmaids.  Loved it!  And a few days ago Logan and I went to see The Hangover 2.  I have mixed feelings about it.  I mean, it was funny, but it was the exact same plot as the first.  They could have made at least a little effort to mix it up a bit, right? 

My dad’s brother Steve and some of his family came in to town for their grandson’s high school graduation.  I met up with everyone one day for lunch at the LaPrade family favorite, Highland Park Cafeteria.  (Gotta love their baked squash and zucchini bread!)

And last night I got to celebrate at Breadwinners and Hotel Lumen for Amanda’s bachelorette party.  It was so great getting to see my sweet friends Haley and Christy from Children’s, and also get to hang out with two of my new nurse friends Laura and Mandy from Medical City. 

As for Baby Lowry, all is well!  I just read today that he’s now the size of an onion, and my uterus is the size of a cantaloupe.  (Working my way right through the produce section, aren’t I?)  We had another doctor’s appointment at 15 weeks, and everything is moving right along.  No sonogram this time, but we did get to hear the heartbeat with the doppler.  Such an amazing sound!  Our next appointment is June 22 (my birthday!), and that’s when we’ll do the “big” sonogram, where they take lots of measurements, check out all of the organs, and (if someone cooperates) verify that he’s really a boy. 

I’ve been feeling a lot more like myself lately.  The nausea is pretty much gone, unless I go too long without eating.  When my stomach is completely empty it gets a little upset.  You’d have to ask Logan to be sure, but I feel like I haven’t been having as many emotional meltdowns and mood swings as before.  Apparently my body is adjusting to the raging pregnancy hormones now.  :)  As for food aversions, I’m still not eating chicken – unless it’s in crispy fried form, and since that’s not healthy I try to stay away all together.  And as for cravings, I think I crave more sweet than salty these days.  Luckily I found a Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt nearby, and while it’s not sugar free, it is fat free and way “healthier” than the marble slab I could be having.  (That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway.) 

I’m really ready to start feeling the little guy moving around in there.  There have been a few times that I think I’ve felt him, but I’m not 100% sure yet.  The books say that this week I may be able to feel movement, but it could also be another 5 weeks or so.  I’m hoping for sooner rather than later. 

We also think we’ve picked out a name!  I’m not quite ready to share it publicly yet though – for a couple of reasons.  The main one is that I’d like to wait until his gender is verified in a couple of weeks before announcing it.  I don’t feel right “officially” naming the baby until we know he’s a he.  The other reason is that even though the name we like doesn’t have any possible nicknames, a relative of mine who shall remain nameless (Uncle Steve) chose to make jokes about it directly to my face.  Yes, I know he was just teasing, and yes, I know he thought he was just making people laugh, but the truth is it was incredibly rude, it hurt my feelings, and a 60+ year old man should know better.  But, I digress.  I’d say we’re about 90% sold on the name.  Logan is 100%, but I take a little longer than most to commit to big decisions.  :) 

Lastly, the weekly belly pics!  My sweet friend Terri from work got me some fun belly stickers that label how many weeks along you are.  They come in 2 week increments, so be on the lookout for those on the even weeks.    

14 weeks:

15 weeks:

16 weeks:

17 weeks:
 
I also realized I never posted pictures of a couple of baby outfits we have.  I’ve been restraining myself until the gender is confirmed, but I saw this little crab onsie and couldn’t resist it, especially since it was on sale. 

My favorite part – the crab on the butt!
I saw this and knew I had to get it.  The baby will be born right in the middle of football season, and since Logan fully intends to brainwash our child into loving all sports I figured he’d need a Cowboys outfit to wear while he cheers on the ‘Boys.  Here it is with the bib:

And without the bib.  Love those tiny socks!
The next outfit is from Aunt Jessica, and I love it!  Especially the little lion hat.  Knowing how much Jessica loves to shop, and how irresistible  baby clothes are, I imagine this will be one well dressed baby!  ;)