Smile!

Holiday Photo Shoot!

We had our friend Dorothy take some nice family holiday photos of us. Check them out in the 12-08 photo album.

She grows!

Maeve had her 5 week appointment today. She is 9 lbs, 2 oz, which is ever so slightly below average (in the 39th percentile), but she is just ever so slightly above average in length. So tall and thin, not so bad.

She is starting to grow out of her newborn clothes, her sleepers are now almost too short. And she is no longer dwarfed by her swing (although is still horribly offended that we would dare put her in it when we could very well be holding her), and actually fits in it. She has started to coo at us and we imagine the first real smile is not too far behind. She looks at us now and makes eye contact. And if she is looking around and we suddenly appear in her line of vision, she gets this ridiculously cute surprised look on her face.

Stay tuned for a ridiculous amount of pictures for the month of December.

1 Month!

Well here we all are, and we're all still alive and kicking! And although we are looking forward to Nana Morris visiting, we've been doing pretty good on our own.

Maeve is eating and growing very well. At her two week appointment, she had gone above her birth weight by 6 ounces. Her next check up is this Friday, and we're guessing she'll be above 9 pounds! She still burps like a drunken sailor, and Ashton is very proud of how loudly she farts! She sleeps at night for 3 hour stretches, and we're only up twice at night for eating/diaper changing. It's not so much sleep deprivation, as it is sleep interrupted, and for that, we are very appreciative.

She's not too keen right now on her swing and bouncy chair unless she is sleeping. If she's awake, she prefers to be held and if you don't give in, she gets pretty angry, pretty quickly. Luckily, we finally got our Baby Bjorn (all hail the Baby Bjorn!), so maybe I will finally be able to get things done during the day when it's just the two of us.

Her hair has yet to fall out, and even appears to be growing! While that may not seem like that big a deal, keep in mind that her mother had hardly any hair until the age of 2, so we're off to a good start! She already has more hair than I did when I was a year old, although it may be awhile before she catches up to her cousin Alita.

So that's it: she eats, sleeps, poops, pees, and looks cute!

Checking In.

Just checking in with everyone to let you all know we have survived our first two weeks of parenting. The last of the grandparents have left and we are now on our own!

Maeve has proven to be a very good baby. She only seems to cry when she is hungry or when we have done her the grave injustice of taking her clothes off to change her diaper. She sleeps at night much better than most new babies (or so we hear from others) and we're hoping that habit stays put.

She got her first bath at home last weekend. At first she didn't want to be bothered and stayed asleep after we put her in the tub, but then she woke up and promptly pooped in the water. She burps like a truck driver, which makes Ashton very proud.

New pictures will be added soon.

Maeve Abigail Morris

After resigning ourselves to the idea that she wasn't going to make an appearance before her due date, which was 11/12, Maeve decided to make a surprise appearance at 9:32 a.m. on 11/7/08. Maybe not all that much of a surprise since my water broke shortly after midnight and I had been in labor since just before midnight, but you get the idea.

As far as labors go, especially for first time mothers, it was fast and smooth (or so I am told). Sure, there was some begging on my part towards the end, but I imagine that's often par for the course. It was a drug-free birth, but that's all coincidental, since it wasn't part of the original plan.

We're all healthy, all happy, and yes, we're all tired.

3D!

So we went ahead and got a 3D ultrasound. We decided we wanted it done and did all our research and are completely comfortable with its safety. Besides, it's probably too late for her to grow a third eye! We went to a wonderful woman's health care center and we were really happy with the experience.

First we got our 100% guarantee that she is definitely a girl. We won't post that photo here, but assume that she wasn't shy about it. The other photos are in the web album. I also added two other ultrasound photos to the "ultrasound" folder.

At first the little bugger wouldn't cooperate. Her face was pressed up against the side of my uterus, preventing any fluid from getting in front of her face to give us a good look. So I emptied my bladder, coughed some (I have a slight cough), and we jiggled my belly, and voila, baby face! We think she's adorable, and the tech agreed, so we're not biased at all. She actually said that she can tell the cute from the not so cute and Maeve is CUTE!

Just in case you all thought....

.....Maeve wouldn't be subjected to the geekdom that is her father, don't fear. She's not even born yet, and her father bought her her first Darth Vader t-shirt. He also found a Star Wars pop-up book, but we'll wait on that (although Ashton might want it for Christmas, look in the kids section in Barnes and Noble). Check out her totally cool Darth Vader T.

In other news, the belly continues to grow (Belly Shots have been updated). Maeve kicks and squirms all day now, and has taking a liking to kicking the ribs on my right side. We're both still very healthy and moving closer and closer to the due date.

We also made a trip to Barnes and Noble (when we found the pop-up book), where we bought a number of children's books. Ashton has been reading the stories to my belly so that Maeve gets used to his voice.

22 week ultrasound videos!

Most of you have seen these, but here they are again! Two videos. One is almost ten minutes long and has music over the whole thing. The second is the last 3-4 minutes of the video, but with the doctor explaining what we're all looking at. Enjoy!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NVRvHo7DqQ4&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kexBwOne68s&feature=related

22 Weeks! And...it's a Girl!

Here is the little one's profile at 22 weeks. We got a better look between the legs and got 80%, 85%, and finally, 90% assurance that it's a girl. She was very squirmy during the ultrasound and let us see her hands, her fingers, and her feet. She swallowed while we watched and pushed her face up against "the window". She seems to know when she's the center of attention.

Everything continues to look good, nothing looked abnormal with a nice heartrate in the 150's.

I would explain the picture, but it's seems so obvious to me that's it's a profile of a little person. But you should be able to see her forehead, her nose, and her mouth which is slightly open.

19 weeks!

We got a quick ultrasound at 19 weeks when Grandma Udvardi was visiting. The doctor told us he was 70% sure it was a girl due to the absence of "boy parts", but didn't get a good look, because someone insisted on keeping her legs closed.

When he showed us this shot on the screen, I commented that the baby looked like Skeletor (with the most beautiful eye sockets ever seen!!). You can't see it on the photo, but the doctor added the word Skeletor next to the baby's head. It's nice to see he appreciates our sense of humor.

The two big circles in the middle of the face are the eye sockets, the nose is in the middle, and there is an arm across the face covering the mouth.

Most importantly, the baby looked healthy. Brain looked good, heart looked good, no cleft palate, etc. etc. Growth right where it should be.

8 Weeks!

No longer an embryo, now a fetus, with 100% less tail!

Growth still right on target, heartbeat thumping away at something like 167 bpm. Aside from a very quick ultrasound at just past 10 weeks to find a baby elusive with a doppler, we wouldn't have another ultrasound until 19 weeks.

Obviously, the blob is starting to look less like a blob and more like...a peanut shell (Mr. Peanut without the top hat and cane?). And no we don't know which end is which, but then again, neither did the nurse/ultrasound tech who does this all day, every day. There's some joke to be made there, but I'll leave that for another time.

7 Weeks!

At the 7 week ultrasound, we got the hear the heartbeat for the first time. A nice little rythmic thumping of 143 bpm. Growth right on target, everything looking good and a big sigh of relief.

And yes, the arrow is pointing at the blob 'o baby.

6 Weeks

We walked into the ultrasound just shy of 6 weeks, something like 5 weeks, 5 days. They told us not to expect much, not even a heartbeat. We were looking for a fetal pole and yolk sac. They saw all that! We got to see a lovely little teeny tiny blob on the screen with a heartbeat and a rate of 109 bpm, just about middle of the road and completely normal.

For those of you not skilled in spotting the embryo, it's that little oval shaped thing on the left hand side inside the open black space, at just about 9 o'clock.

And sorry about the crinkling, someone accidentally crumbled the photo (hint: It wasn't the pregnant one of us)

Belly Shots!

First the photos were for us to watch the progress, and now we figured we'd let everyone join in the fun of watching Jen go from tiny to, well, not so tiny. If you're interested in the growing belly, just link on over to the Web Album and take a look.

It's a .....Baby!

Hey Everyone,
Almost 6 months in and we're finally getting around to filling in this blog, it's been sitting empty for months! Jen has been busy being lazy or as she likes to call it....pregnant. It won't be very exciting or interesting for awhile, but at least it will give everyone a chance to come along for the ride with us.