Cheesy Mango

Every week I follow Nerdlet's progress in the Mayo Clinic book, the "What to Expect" book, and then I usually check it out online too.  I'm having so much fun reading about how things are changing in there -- it's really the only guide that I have.  I can't see in there, and most of the time I can't even feel in there much.  So - on Saturday I hit the 19 week mark, so I thought I would check out what's happening there.  It turns out - this is what's happening in there:

"Have you ever seen a mango dipped in cheese? Well, that's what your baby looks like this week..." (see for yourself, I could not make this up).  So -- allow me to help you a little bit with the imagery here.

Mango:

Cheese:

Take a minute - mix the two together in your head.  Got the image now?  It's pretty weird, right?  And gross.  That is without question the weirdest way I've heard my baby described so far. 

Now, go ahead and add this face:

It just became a little terrifying, right?  Poor Nerdlet.  I guess the cheesy mango is just a phase.  S/he'll grow out of it.

Today was Nerdlet's "big" ultrasound.  Everything is looking good in there, except we were unable to confirm that Nerdlet has feet, and there was zero cooperation when trying to get a map of the heart.  I should MAYBE be concerned about this, but I'm mostly just excited that it means another ultrasound in two weeks.  I can live with a footless baby, but I'm guessing the feet hiding was just another show of rebellion. 

We chose not to find out the gender (I didn't cave!).  At one point Todd and I SWEAR we heard the tech say something about "the boy" -- but then a couple minutes later he told us that it was a good thing we didn't want to find out the gender because that's apparently right where Nerdlet was hiding his/her feet - and there would be no cooperation there either.  Nerdlet is modest.  So - it might be a boy.  But could also possibly be a girl.  We're about 100% sure it's one of those two things (despite the fact that it currently looks like an alien). 

We were able to get a pretty good picture of Nerdlet's spine.  This one I can make out -- it was very clear on the ultrasound screen and very cool to see.

Despite the lack of feet, we apparently have two legs.  Yeah - I'm not really sure there are legs in there either.   But that's how it's labeled!

Arms were also captured on film.  We also got to see tiny fingers, but didn't get a picture of those. 

I think Nerdlet looks like a little monkey here (so, to recap -- possibly boy, possibly girl, possibly alien, possibly monkey), but it's my favorite picture of them all.  It's still a little blurry.  I'm guessing that the ones we get in two weeks will be MUCH more clear. 

So far - so good.  My blood pressure is still high, but my urine tests came back normal so nobody is freaking out about that yet.  Nerdlet currently weighs about 10 oz and appears to be measuring right on track.  All in all - it was a fantastic appointment.  There is always much relief when we get to peek in on little Nerdlet, but this week we also got confirmation that almost everything (that we could see) is developing like it should - and the little bean is still be-bopping away in there!