What a MONDAY!!!!

Ugh!  The doctors visit couldn't have been a bigger downer! 

As EVERYONE knows, we were SO excited about todays doctors visit!  We even color coordinated ourselves with what we wanted....I was in a lovely light pink polo and Chad was dressed in a stylish baby blue Express t-shirt. (HAHA!)  Yes, the ladies at the doctors office loved it....and got a great laugh out of it. 

Once we were called back Marcia immediately started the ultrasound......I had Mom, Dad, Dawn, and Chris all on Skype......Chad had the video camera going and we were ready.  1 minute went by, 2minutes, oh wait Marcia thinks she sees a "turtle"......nope, not a "turtle", it's the umbilical cord......ooop, another shot of a "turtle"......nope, umbilical cord again......5 minutes, 6 minutes......finally she gave up and said she just wasn't confident enough with what she could see to tell for sure what it was.  My heart sank.  I don't think it's so much that I care what the sex is but I feel like it's more of a bonding experience when I can put a gender to it.  And we are really ready to narrow down some names......that's something we are having a hard time agreeing on. 

A little bit later the doctor came and and asked what we saw.  I think he saw my disappointment when I told him we couldn't see for sure and he got me up on that table to try again.  He had a little bit of a hard time as well.  Baby's tushy was hiked up just fine but it was being a little modest and the umbilical cord was blocking some of the necessary viewing area.  Doc said if the umbilical cord was the "turtle" then we'd have a "Johnson" on our hands....Chad said we'd be having a paternity test on our hands.  HAHAHA!

At the end of it all the doctor didn't see any boy parts, said he is pretty sure it is a girl but to not start any shopping just yet.  :-(  He told us that we could stop by anytime and he would try again.  Chad leaves Wednesday morning to go back out on the road till Sunday so we are going to pop back in next Monday (with our color coded shirts) and see what happens! 

We decided to test for Down Syndrome as well today so we should have those results within the next day or two.  Chad and I thought it best to know if anything is wrong so that we can atleast start researching and be as prepared as we can.

In conclusion, we will try again for the gender determination next Monday.  If nothing then, we do have an appointment the following Monday so we'll try again then.  May 11th is my next official apppointment and they'll do another form of ultrasound so that they can see the growth, etc, etc.  I will keep everyone updated!

Love to everyone,

Court, Chad and the little modest one

Girl is in the lead........

Wow! The votes are coming in from everywhere and GIRL (Pom Poms) is in the lead big time so far! Here are the new guesses........

Jess (niece) - Girl
Val (sis-in-law) - Girl
Kevin (brother-in-law) - Boy
The Stevensons - Girl
Amy Schwartz - Girl
The Heinzlemans - Girl
The Stanleys - Girl
Lesley - Girl
Cameron - Boy
Melissa Stevenson Tardiff - Girl
Barb (cousin) - Boy
Angie Holton Whitcomb - Twins!  HAHAHA!
Crystal Smith - Boy
Roni Kaechele - Girl
Darlene Smith - Girl

This has been quite fun! Only 5 more days! We'll have the answer posted by lunch on Monday! Let's go Pom Poms!!!!

Another guess........

I have a new guess to add from my dear Uncle Kurt!

Uncle Kurt-Girl

We are getting close to all kinds of good stuff! Seeing as today is almost over I'll start my count at Tuesday.....5 1/2 more days till Chad is home!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never been so excited to see him!! And that means 6 1/2 more days till we know what our little bundle of joy is going to be!

I have been feeling pretty good lately. Still a bit tired and still getting migraines but seeing as we are a few weeks into the second trimester I am hoping all that will subside soon. Chads been lonesome and is ready to be home with me and the belly. :-).

Hope this update finds everyone doing well!
Xoxo-
Court

Current Guesses........

Mom - Boy
Chris - Boy
Dad - Boy
Courtney - Girl
Chad - Girl
Dawn - Boy
Cath - Girl
Shellie - Girl
Brandon - Girl

Longest Trip Ever....

Well, I'm about a week into an almost three week trip now. It feels like an eternity already. Today has been especially hard because it's Courtney's birthday and I'm in Reading, PA at the worst Comfort Inn in the world. What's making time drag by even slower is the fact that when I get home we have another appointment to find out the sex of the baby. I know alot of people say this but I am really good either way on this. Boy or girl, I'm just happy. At least we'll be able to narrow down the name game that we play on a weekly basis. It will be nice to have a gender to base it on. Let's hear some ideas that you might have. I guess there's not really much else going on right now. I'm just trying to get through this trip and get home to my girls. That's right, I said girls! I think it's a girl. Don't know why I do. It's just a feeling. We will soon find out. More to come..      Happy Birthday Court!!!

Chad

Where are your guesses??!!

I see no one has guessed yet! I only have Dawn's vote so far and she says boy. And speaking of predictions........I was at an appointment today and apparently the front desk lady does gender predictions for pregnant women. So of course I couldn't wait for her to do mine. After about a minute of her swinging a crystal above my left wrist she said I was having a BOY!! Ha! Now come on.......what do you all think? I am dying to know!

I forgot to write in then last blog that we are currently 14 weeks and 2 days with 25 weeks and 5 days to go........obviously give or take a few days or a week since only 5% of babies are born on the actual due date. The baby is currently about 4 1/2 inches long and weighs between 2 & 3 ounces........so it's about the size of a navel orange.

I am flying to Rosemary tomorrow for a quick trip to be with Mom, Dad and Chris on my birthday since Chad will be in the NY area. Looking forward to it and the 80 degree weather they are supposed to have. It dropped to 48 here today. Ridiculous for spring time!

Love to you all!

Court

Pink or Blue??

Chad officially left to hit the road for the next three weeks. So it's just baby and I on the home front for a while. Please feel free to come visit if any of you would like........I have a lot of spare time on my hands. :-)

Nothing to update on Baby Cates. We still listen to the heartbeat every day and it is still beating fast and strong. I am just now starting to show a little bit........don't necessarily look like I just eat too many donuts every morning. I'll post a picture in a few weeks when you can really tell. We have three more weeks till the next ultrasound and we'll find out wether we need to buy pink or blue paint for the nursery. At this point, if all the old wives tales are true, I'd say we are having a girl. Anyone wanna take a guess?? Leave your answer in a comment! Check back in a few weeks to find out if you guessed correctly!

We love and miss you all!

Court, Chad & BabyCates

Ultra Sound at home

When Courtney told me about renting the ultrasound machine from babybeat.com I thought it was either gonna be the best thing in the world, or the worst. It turned out to be a little of both. When we first got the machine we immediately had to try it, of course. We had no luck finding the heart beat. So, we thought it was just that we weren't using it properly, or the baby was in a position that wasn't allowing us to hear it. No big deal, we'll try later. Well, later turned into several attempts over the course of three to four days and still no heartbeat. Now I'm starting to freak out a bit. We still had a few days before our next doctor appointment. Those days were turning out to be the longest days I've ever waited on something. Until one Sunday I was on my way home from the road and Court called me screaming that she'd found the heartbeat and for me to listen. I had never felt such a overwhelming feeling of joy and relief at the exact same time. I thought I was excited about the baby before. Hearing that just knocked excited out of the park and turned it up to ecstatic! Can't wait to meet our baby! More to come soon..

Chad

12 week checkup

Our 12 week checkup went great!  Baby Cates is active as ever!  The nurse said she hadn't seen a baby move around like ours was in a long time.  At this point Baby Cates is only about 2 1/2 inches long but already sucking it's thumb!  We recently rented a Doppler Ultrasound machine and are able to listen to the heartbeat together every night.  It's amazing how fast the heartbeat is.  Nothing else new for now.  Our next check up is on April 11th at 10 am.  We'll be 17 weeks so we are hoping the doctor will be able to tell us the sex of the baby then.  So excited to find out!  Here is another picture of Baby Cates.  It is hard to tell what is what.  The body is upside down and you can see the head in the middle but to the right.  The easiest part to see is actually the fingers and then you can tell she is sucking her thumb.   :)

Miss and love you all!
Courtney, Chad & Baby Cates

Baby Cates' first picture

Baby Cates at 8 weeks, 2 days.....

Introduction....

Hello all and welcome to my Baby Cates blog!  As of right now we are 8+ weeks pregnant and our estimated due date is September 20th, 2011.  We are head over heels excited and decided to start writing about our journey so our friends and family can stay up to date with everything.  I promise we will try and keep it fun and exciting!  We love and miss you all!

Xoxo,

Court, Chad and Baby Cates