BABY UPDATE

It's a GIRL!!!!!!!!

 So, I thought I would give a little blog update on Baby Vasilaki.  We are happy to graduate from referring to her as "it," as if she were a cantaloupe or sea cucumber, and now can affectionately call her "she," "her," and "baby girl."  I am guessing she may appreciate that.

I, along with all the female members of my family, many friends, and my 3-year-old nephew (who was the most sure of us all) was pretty sure baby was a girl baby.  Christos wanted a girl so bad I know he could taste it.  I am sure we would have been happy either way, but we are both so so happy that she is a girl!!!!  Yay!!!!!!!

I had a sonogram at 16 weeks (here, you have a sonogram at every appointment) and that bad baby kept her legs tightly shut the entire time.  I was literally banging on my stomach trying to make her move around, but she was not having it.  That was not the first time she acted up at an ultrasound.  (At our 12 week appointment, after which we were planning to share our happy news with everyone, she had moved so far back into my abdomen that we could not see her at all.  That delayed sharing our news by a week while we waited for her to come forward and show her cute little face again.)  It was also not the last.  She was totally uncooperative Thursday as well.  The doctor had to play on the sonogram for so long to get a clear view of her lady parts that he finally just sat down on the bed with me and continued from there.  He never really did get a clear shot.  She basically just gave him a quick flash and then went back to her game-playing ways, but he assured us that we have a 99% chance of having a girl.  He said as we were leaving that she really gave him a hard time during the ultrasound.  Thanks, baby. 

So, five months down, 4 to go.  I am feeling really really good, and I actually have been for the past month or two now.

My appetite has suddenly gone CRAZY.  I think that this is due, in part, to the fact that we have had rain (make that torrential downpours, thunder, gusting winds, floods, monsoons) almost every single day since we got home from Italy.  It has been wet and blah outside, and, pregnant or not, that just makes me want to get cozy in the house and stuff my face.  So, the fact that my weight had skyrocketed at my appointment Thursday may be a little bit more to blame on mama than baby.

Speaking of eating, I can eat anything now.  I really cannot think of any real aversions that are hanging around.  What I have been eating ALL the time is brown bread (the fresh, hard-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside loaf bread that you buy here daily from the bakery) slathered in butter, honey, and/or apricot jelly and various combinations of the three.  It tastes good.

I now feel the baby moving all the time, at least several times a day.  Almost whenever I am sitting still or laying around I can feel it fluttering around in there.  Last Sunday night Christos felt it for the first time.  We thought it was probably still a little early, but that we would take a chance.  As soon as he put his hand on my belly, baby gave 3 or 4 of the hardest little jabs I had ever felt.  I guess she knew it was her daddy's hand.

We have not gotten the name down as yet.  We had a much clearer idea for a girl than a boy, but we did not really want to spend a lot of time talking about it until we had it narrowed down to one or the other.  We have a good general idea of what it will be, but that will be coming to you at a later date.  

So, that is the grand update on the status of our growing little family...getting larger by the day.  We are happy happy and all are good, healthy, and fantastic!!!!