22 weeks

our sweet Ava keeps getting bigger and bigger each day! Her senses are developing daily and she's exploring the sense of touch by touching her arms, legs, and even face...and my insides...
Most evenings I can feel her before I go to bed moving around in there, and most mornings. Now-a-days though I even feel her up and around during the day, which is very cool.

And for a non-baby update...WE'VE MOVED! We bought our house and are nearly 2/3 of the way moved in! Saturday is the big U-haul/furniture day. We have our mattresses already moved, we were too excited so we wanted to start sleeping there as soon as possible. We have a dog (Rex) and a cat (Jaxon) [see photos below] who we've already moved over there with us and they are quickly getting accustomed to the ins and outs and all the secret hiding places they can find. My mom, dad, brother, sister in law & sweet nieces saved the day yesterday. We had no hot water, even though the lady at the gas places swears that the gas is on. We had pilot light issues. But with much persistance my dad finally got it working! and thanks to him and Brandon, Jaxon has a safe haven away from Rex as they installed a cat door so now he has one place he can run to where his brother won't be attacking him...

our new home...

the day we bought our first house, 7/28/08


Rexy

Jaxon (nicer than this picture makes him look...though 100% just as much of a troublemaker...)

21w + 3d

our baby girl this week: Ava is supposed to be about 7 inches in lengh and almost 11 ounces in weight...HOWEVER...at the 20 week check up the dr said she was already 15 ounces, nearly 1 lb! So no telling how much she weighs right now. But a friend of ours who just had her baby 6 weeks ago said the sonogram can be off by a lb more or less so maybe she is right at the right weight. we'll find out soon enough I'm sure!

She can now taste what I taste because she is swallowing amniotic fluid for hydration, nutrition, and to practice swallowing & digesting.
and something VERY cool about this week...
Sam felt her move for the first time! It was last night, we were watching TV and I felt her moving around right below my belly button. So I had him put his hand there, and I put both my hands on top of his to weigh it down a little and sure enough over and over again he felt little patters on his hand! It was so neat! This morning she won't stop moving around either--which for now is really fun :) I'm hoping that since now I'm primarily feeling her move by my belly button and not on my left side that means she turned. and HOPEFULLY she turned so her head is down and her feet are up...time will only tell though.

and lastly, we've been doing lots of shopping already for her! My mother-in-law & I went to Babies "R" Us the other day and just had a heck of a time trying to force ourselves not to buy every cute outfit in there for her! We got her some adorable onezies with matching caps [it will be winter so she'll need to be fashionable with her hats ;) ], a really cute zip up hoodie/sweater, and plenty of other matching top/pants outfits. I think though as I think about how we will dress her, present her, etc., I really love the little girl sweats outfits. You know, the matching track jackets & pants. So I need to keep my eye out for those because I just love them. Good thing for now is she will wear what WE think is cute :) I know that stage won't last forever... so here are just a couple of the cute outfits we got for her while shopping. and even though this stuff is mostly pink, that won't be the way it is for long. I found some adorable browns, oranges, and yellows in the organic clothes online @ babies r us that I registered for and I just couldn't pass them up! She will need variety in her style.

Christian the Lion

20w + 5d

well my brother posed a very good question...What does Ava Mae mean? My research consists of whatever google gives me...and here are several different selections to choose from (seems to me they don't really know for sure where Ava came from or what it really means...):

AVA
1. origin: Germanic, meaning: N/A.
2. origin: Afghan, meaning: Voice.
3. origin: English, meaning: a variation on the medieval names Avis and Aveline.
4. origin: German, meaning: a bird.
5. origin: Greek, meaning: iniquity
6. origin: Greek, meaning: A form of Eva
7. origin: Latin, meaning: Like a bird

made popular in large in the 1950's thanks to actress Ava Gardner.

MAE
1. origin: English, meaning: a variation of spelling for the fifth month, May.
2. origin: Celtic/Gaelic, meaning: From Mary

so know we sort of know...

20w + 3d

the long awaited for name of our daughter...

AVA MAE LANE

after talking about it, Sam and I decided we couldn't keep it a secret anymore and wanted to share the name with others.

and, we are officially registered at http://www.babiesrus.com/
so, for your entertainment, if you'd like to see the baby items that we see fit for our girl, here is a link to our registry:
http://www.toysrus.com/ControllerServlet?lastName=Lane&firstName=Jami&state=MO&target=search&userType=giftGiver&searchForPerson=primReg&whereTo=viewRegistry&x=56&y=5

20w + 1d new pictures!

here she is:IT'S A GIRL!

HER VERY CUTE, ROUND FACE

HER FACE AGAIN

HER FINGERS

HER HAND

HER HAND AGAIN

AND HER TOES! isn't she cute?!? :)

20 weeks = 5 months = 1/2 way there = girl = cantelope!

WE'RE HAVING A DAUGHTER!!!

We found out on Monday 7/14 that we, in deed, have a girl in me! seemingly the dr has no doubt about it. though it took her about 10-15 minutes to finally find the right parts, it's a girl. she said that she (our daughter) is currently breech, laying sideways in me. Her head is on my right side and her feet on my left, facing my spine. So that explains why I haven't felt her move a ton yet. Though I still feel flutters and little things here and there, since she's being active towards my insides I am not able to detect most of her movements. That makes me feel better about things.

She's just shy of a pound, weighing in at 15 oz (I don't know how they can tell the weight) so the dr said I might not have to wait until Dec 4 to have her, she could come as early as Nov 24! Which, ironically, is already the birthday of Matt Perry & little Matthew Baber. So whenever is fine with me, but once that day comes I'm sure I'll be more than ready to greet her!

Sam & I went to the Gap and purchased our first "daughter" clothes. I tried to find pictures online but failed. Then I was going to take my own pictures with my phone, but those just don't do the clothes justice of their cuteness. one is bright pink with white trim and says "pretty girl. clever girl. daddy's girl." and the other is white with pink trim and says "my heart belongs to mommy". we're getting used to calling her "her" and "she" and "our daughter". It's awesome knowing that it's a girl.

ALSO--we just bought our first house!! So we'll be moving in 11 days...nothing like rushing it. The closing date was set when we placed the offer so we knew this was a possiblity. So, fun fun fun! Can't wait to get the nursery all set up.

19w + 1d

since I completely missed week 18...here's what we missed that the baby has been doing:

Baby is gaining fat
Baby can hear me talk now, can hear my heart beat, & can hear familiar voices
In an ultra sound it can even be seen as sucking it's thumb by now

week 19:

Baby is moving and I can feel it! (felt it for the first time on Monday night--and now can notice it thru out the day here and there)
Baby's nerves that connect muscles to the brain have grown into place and it's movements are intentional and conscious now!
Ears stand out on the sides of the head now
Buds for the permanent teeth appear
arms & legs have reached relative proportion
this is my favorite: it's feet are but an 1" long!!! how cute!!!

Monday is the big day when we find out if it's a boy or a girl! I'm thinking about changing the color scheme of my blog to that of pink or blue, depending on the sex obviously. we'll see. I went shopping at Babies R Us and got some more Pooh stuff...

17w + 5d

so I got a little behind this week with my update. Here was our baby's size at 17 weeks, comparable to an open hand:
18 weeks is right around the corner...but I'll wait for the day to post a picture of what size it'll be then.
I can't really tell if I've felt the baby move yet or not, it's debatable. Sometimes I think maybe that was it, but nothing for sure yet.
We braved the pool the other day and my belly got some fun exposure. Maybe the best was my dad's face when he saw how big my belly already had gotten. It was priceless.

Update on our baby's features: eyes are facing more forward now, ears are close to their final position, our baby is more flexible now being able to move its head, mouth, lips, arms, wrists, hands, legs, feet and toes! It's like a real person now!!! It's finger prints are even starting to form now.

I've heard that babies at this point can hear fairly well, and loud noises might startle them. The example they used is a dog barking. Since we have a dog, I imagine this is a sound our kiddo is getting used to already. They even said that they will get used to this noise and it will be less likely to wake them once they're born & sleeping. so that's awesome.

more in a couple days...