18 weeks

Last week I got to have another ultrasound at the doctor's office. If we wanted to find out the baby's sex, we could have done so at this point. But we want to be surprised (well, I want to be surprised. Ernie would like to find out, but we made a deal when I was pregnant with Samuel that we'd find out in advance for the 1st baby, and then be surprised for the next. And even though Ernie was hoping I would conveniently forget the deal, I did not!)

Here are 2 pictures from the ultrasound:



Here the baby is sucking his thumb:



The ultrasound tech said that my fluid level looked a little low, so I actually get to go back at the end of this week and have another ultrasound. With Samuel I only got 1 total, and the one this week will be my third, which I think is pretty cool. It's amazing how much detail they can see.

This pregnancy seems to be flying by. I will be at the 1/2 way point next week, which is hard to believe! I feel like I look a lot more pregnant than I did at this point the first time around. We'll have to take some pictures of me and post those soon.

In non-baby news, here is a picture of Samuel at a picnic we went to this weekend. It was raining, but we were under a covered pavillion, so it was fine. This umbrella is not ours - it belonged to one of the other people at the picnic. Samuel LOVED it. It had a button to press to make the umbrella pop out, and a kind of automatic folding option. He ignored all of the other toys at the picnic in favor of this umbrella. He must have opened and closed it 100 times. I'm thinking it might be a good big brother gift to get him in October.