2 month checkup

We had our 2 month check up at the pediatrician's office. Emma got a couple of shots, but handled it very well. She is weighing in at 12 lbs. 11 3/4 oz. (84%). She is now 24 1/2 inches (96%) and a head circumference of 39 cm (49%).

4 week checkup

We had our 4 week check up at the pediatrician's office. We got a clean bill of health and Emma did pretty good with her shot. She is weighing in at 9 lbs. 9 1/2 oz. (66%). She is now 21 3/4 inches (74%) and a head circumference of 37 1/2 cm (63%).

Emma's First Easter

Today was Emma's first Easter. We had lunch over at Stan and Laurie's and here are some of the pictures. Here are Wendy's pictures.

2 Week checkup

We have our 2 week check up at the pediatrician's office. She is weighing in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. (54%). This is back above her birth weight which is great! She is now 21 1/4 inches (81%) and a head circumference of 36 1/2 cm (61%).

First Pediatrician visit

We have our first appointment with Dr. Trung D. Tran, Emma's pediatrician with the Clinical Pediatric Associates of North Texas, today. Everything is looking good and Dr. Tran reassures us regarding Emma's Jaundice and weight gain. She is weighing in at 7 lbs. 12 1/4 oz. (48%) and still at 20 1/2 inches (73%) with a head circumference of 36 cm (66%).

Finally Released

We are released from the hospital today!!! Emma's weight is climbing back up (7 lbs. 11 oz.) due to the diligent efforts of Stacy and the on staff lactation consultants at the hospital. We are so glad to be going home and were greeted by both sets of grandparents, Wendy and her boyfriend, John. Check out the immense photo album from the first week of Emma (we still have yet to organize it all).

Check out delayed...

We are supposed to check out of the hospital today, but due to Emma's Jaundice levels, and excessive weight loss (7 lbs. 8 oz.), the pediatrician wants us to stay a couple of extra days.

Emma is born!!!

We check into the hospital right after midnight. After enduring 18 hours of labor (including Mike almost passing out during the epidural) and 2 1/2 hours of pushing, Emma Marie Becker was born at 4:59 pm weighing in at 8 lbs. 4 oz. and a length of 20 1/2 inches. Mom and baby are doing good and Dad gets to call his parents to announce Emma's name and birth. Dad then gets to go outside and announce her birth and name to the the family at the hospital. There is quite a large group of supporters at the hospital including Grandma and Grandpa Wright, Aunt Wendy, Memaw, Nan, Sally Tobin and John Wright. Dad then gets to call his brothers (biological and collegiate). At about 7:30 that night we get to go up to our postpartum room.

Here she comes...

As we are laying in bed watching the news at about 10:30, Stacy starts mentioning that she is having some stomach cramps on the top of her stomach. Around 11 or so, Stacy's water breaks and we hop in the car to head down to the hospital. Of course today was the first day of Stacy's OB/GYN's vacation, so we call in to the service to talk to Dr. Payne (a little intimidating talking to a Doctor with that name...). We call our parents on the way to the hospital to let them know what's going on.

Ebby Baby Shower

We had a baby shower at Stacy's office today. They were so generous and gave us a gift certificate to Babies-R-Us so we could finish up the items on our registry.

Archon Baby Shower

We had a baby shower at Mike's office today. They were so generous in providing us with a lot of the stuff that we needed including big items like the Pack 'n' Play, Diaper Champ, Baby Einstein Activity Center and a bunch of baby care items.

It looks like she's going to be a big one...

We had another ultrasound today and it looks like she might be a big one. From the initial measurements, the baby is now 6 lbs. 13 oz. This will make her a 9+ lb. baby if those measurements are accurate. Since the baby was breathing in and out so much (a good sign that she is relaxed), the Doctor isn't sure how accurate the measurement is. We're starting to get the house setup and are trying to setup the babies stuff.

Baby Shower

Stacy had her baby shower which was hosted by Regan, Gini, Carol, Amanda, Lollie, Mary Beth and Lindsey. Here are some pictures from the party. Everyone at the shower was very generous and we received a number of useful items including outfits, blankets, the stroller, the baby swing, and numerous other things off the registry.

4D Ultrasound

We did a 4D ultrasound as a Christmas presents for the grandparents. We did it up at "Window in the Womb" up in Grapevine with all 4 of the grandparents and Uncle Andy. This really allowed us to see what she looked like!!! You can see hair on her head and there was a special moment where she was showing us the bird!! For most of the video, she had a hand in front of her face, but when she did move it, you could see her face pretty clearly.
Here's a picture of her face:

In this video, the first part has her arm in front of her face, and the second part she is resting her head on her arm (you can see her elbow and forearm clearly).

It's a girl!!!

We finally found out today that it's a girl!!! We are so excited!!! We couldn't wait to get home to start calling our family and letting them know. At first, our little girl was being modest and not showing what was between her legs, but finally we were able to see what was going on down there.

Other than finding out the sex, everything else is looking good. Her heartbeat is 150, and based upon the leg bone measurements, the computer determined that she should be 21 weeks and 3 days (only 1 day off from what the initial estimate was). So, basically she's looking quite normal and average sized.
You can really start to see her face...

October Checkup

We had another ultrasound today and everything is still looking good. The heartbeat is 144.5, which is within the normal range for 17 weeks. We were hoping to find out the sex of the baby today, but no such luck. We have a very modest baby who kept their legs closed and covered up their private parts with one of their hands. Our next appointment is in another 4 weeks, so we'll have to wait until then to find out the sex. Unfortunately, the ultrasound video is hard to make out. The wand-thingy was moving around quite a bit as we were trying to knock the babies legs apart. Here are some movies and a picture I was able to get out of the session.

One arm over the face, the other under the butt
My left foot
You can see the chambers of the heart

Check out my brain!!!

We had another ultrasound today and everything looked great. The hearbeat is 176.4 (still normal according to the OB/GYN). The baby was moving around quite a bit and was hard to get a good picture, but below are some shots from the video. We should be able to find out the sex of the baby in 4 weeks when we go back for our next ultrasound. Stacy is starting to feel better and isn't getting nauseous that much anymore. You can definitely see that Stacy is starting to show.

First Movie

Check out my brain!!!
The Hook 'em Horns picture...

Emma's first video!!!

We had another ultrasound today and everything looked great. The hearbeat is 170 (still normal according to the OB/GYN). Click on the picture to take a look at the video (5 MB, so don't do this over a slow connection). Please do a right click on the image and do a "Save Target As.." to your local machine. I don't want to hit the bandwidth limit on our website :).

We're pregnant!!!

Today we went and had our first ultrasound. For some reason, the radiologist did not allow Mike in the room initially, so he had to stay in the waiting room while Stacy went through the initial part by herself. Later, the technician went and brought Mike back in. We found out that we are 7 weeks and 5 days pregnant and that the baby looks healthy. The heartrate is 150 (the normal range is 120 to 160, so that looks normal as well). The anticipated delivery date is March 19, 2005.

That night and the next day we started filling in our family and friends. It was a definite relief to be able to fill people in and not keep it a secret anymore. We appreciate all of the support of our family and friends and look forward to the next 7 months.