It has been an eventful week for my baby bump and me. We took Kevin to Urgent Care last Friday with what doctors thought was an appendicitis. As of now, we still don’t know what sent him there, doubled over, scaring little old ladies. We’ll be posting a detailed account of his painful day soon via a “Kevin & Linda Reports” segment. Look below for a glimpse of how big I’ve gotten:

Checking in with The Bump, Baby Sophie is now the size of a papaya. We also discovered that we had better start watching what we say -- Baby Sophie is now able to hear outside noise from down in the womb. Studies show that babies find gentle music and our own voice most soothing. Her little face is now fully formed, as you’ll soon see in sonograms below. Baby Sophie is now starting to settle into sleep cycles, snoozing about 12 to 14 hours a day. It isn’t too difficult to figure out when, she likes to kick around 5 PM everyday and sporadically throughout the day. Poor Kevin, he hasn’t been able to feel her kicks yet because she’s still pretty gentle.

As we reported last week, we had another ultrasound just yesterday. Baby Sophie was too frisky during her last ultrasound for the ultrasound tech to get comprehensive measurements of her organs. They managed to get them all this time even though she had folded herself completely in half. We watched as her little hands tried to grab on to her ankles. There was quite a bit more detail present this time around. She’s been growing and developing quite a bit during the last four weeks. Her face is fully formed, and my, my, has she got some luscious lips. You can see them on full display in the sonogram below:

For those of you who can’t make out anything more than a white blur from these sonograms, I’ve outlined her profile with little pink dots below:

We even caught a glimpse of the front of her lips and nose in the next sonogram:

I think its safe to say that Baby Sophie won’t be having any hankerings for collagen trout lips in her future.

So what happens when you eat one third of a pound cake by yourself? See for yourself:

This week, Sophie is gulping down several ounces of amniotic fluid, both for hydration and nutrition. She’s practicing swallowing and digesting. And, these days, those taste buds actually work! Studies show that after birth, babies are most interested in tastes they’ve already experiences through amniotic fluid. I guess this means that Sophie is going to want a lot of pound cake, oranges, and Girl Scout Lemonade cookies.

Size wise, Sophie is now the size of a banana:

In other news, we’ll be heading back to get another ultrasound on Monday. Sophie’s friskiness at the last ultrasound meant that they couldn’t get all the necessary measurements. I’m rather relieved to be going again because I want to confirm that Sophie is indeed a Sophie before I color her world pink.

So what does that little box above mean to my life? Function, apparently. Since the first trimester, my OB has had me on one Unisom a night. It is an absolute miracle worker. The original Unisom is actually just doxylamine, an antihistamine that has a couple of nice side effects:

1. It makes you pretty sleepy
2. It seems to miraculously cure morning sickness

Taking doxylamine and eliminating certain foods and smells from my life has taken care of most of my morning sickness. Aside from the cold this past week, I had been feeling pretty good. Saturday night, I was getting rather sick of staring at that little blue pill and decided that 20 weeks was plenty. The morning sickness must be gone by now, right? WRONG! Less than 48 hours later I was back on doxylamine and, once again, very thankful for its existence.

Surprise! We’ve chosen a name! Baby Ly-Pang will now be known as Baby Sophie. Sophie is the French form of Sophia. It originates from the Greek and means wisdom or wise. We’ve had a short list of boys and girls names since before I was even pregnant. However, after discovering the sex of the baby, it quickly became evident which was the front runner. Kevin simply could not stop saying "Sophie" in little baby voices. I have no objections to the name whatsoever, because I added the name to the shortlist! We also like the fact that the “ee” at the end of Sophie puts a smile on one’s face.

We have a shortlist of middle names chosen. For the time being, we haven’t decided on which one it will be. If you would like to nominate a middle name for consideration, feel free to comment below.

In other news, now that Baby Sophie is less than 20 weeks from her arrival, we’ve begun making many decisions. We’ve been researching everything from her baby bottle to her diapers. That’s right, diapers. There has always been a great debate of disposable or cloth. These days, there are also disposable cloth diapers. I’ll save you the superfluous breakdown and simply tell you that we’ve decided on cloth diapers through Dy-dee Diapers. After going over research, debates, breakdowns, and charts regarding all the different types of diapers, we decided that cloth is the winner for us by a landslide. We know how much waste both we and the baby are already capable of producing. Introducing an additional 10 diapers a day to a landfill for 1-3 years feels like a big burden to place on Mother Earth. In addition, research has shown that babies in cloth diapers are much more willing to potty train earlier because their diapers remain moist thus giving them the feeling of discomfort as they grow older. This brings me to the next point, chemicals. Disposables are chock full of chemicals so that they can keep your baby dry. It just doesn’t feel right to us to expose Baby Sophie to so many chemicals, especially during her young developmental years. All in all, we appreciate the absence of chemicals, the green aspects, and not having to chase a two year old down to change her diaper. An added bonus of cloth diapers? The excuse to buy diaper covers such as these:

Personalized Bloomers by DaintyDtails

Ruffled Bloomers by RuffleButts

We’re signing off for tonight, but you can look for us tomorrow at the Long Beach Antiques Market. We’ll be hunting for furniture for Baby Sophie and I’ll be looking for inspiration to put towards my second business. Stay tuned, we’ll post photographs tomorrow night.

It seems like just yesterday that we posted week 19 of our weekly Baby Bump Watch series. This week is actually a monumental week. Week 20 has arrived and it marks the official halfway point of this marathon called pregnancy. Our due date, July 28, 2009, is exactly 20 weeks away. However, this doesn’t mean that the baby will actually arrive on July 28; the baby could arrive anytime two weeks before or after that date and still be considered term (July 14-August 11).

We had another visit with our OB, Dr. C, just yesterday. Dr. C discussed the results from the second ultrasound. Everything is currently looking fine with Baby Ly-Pang. Her size indicates that our due date is fairly accurate and there are currently no complications. So what size is she exactly right now? Take a look at Linda and guess:

Checking in with The Bump this week, we can see that Baby Ly-Pang is now the size of a melon:

No, not that kind of a melon. The photograph above is one of our two lovebirds, Princess Flying Watermelon. The baby is actually the size of a cantaloupe, a type of muskmelon:

Her digestive system is busy creating meconium. What is that you ask? Let’s just call it infant poopy that doesn’t usually come out until after birth. Eww. Its like the week of too much information. Speaking of which, according to The Bump our baby’s genitals are now fully formed!

As for daddy, he spent part of this week sick with the cold. He subsequently gave this to mommy. Linda is now currently cursed with a case of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

She’s trying to treat this with a monstrous intake of cookies:

The cookies you see are from a batch of Molasses Cookies Linda made a few months back.

Although we posted week 18 just last Thursday, today actually marks the beginning of Week 19. From now on, we will be posting the Baby Bump Watch series on Tuesday of each week.

Here’s a shot of Linda:

We haven’t seen many changes this week. There’s been an increase of what may, or may not, be the baby kicking. Judging by Baby Ly-Pang’s very active ultrasound, we suspect it is indeed kicking. Linda is having cravings. Luckily, she’s craved salads and oranges all week. We’ll soon see what next week brings.

Checking in with The Bump this week, we can see that Baby Ly-Pang is supposed to be the size of a mango. However, according to the ultrasound a full week ago, she was already bigger and heavier than a mango at that time (9 oz.).

This week, Baby Ly-Pang is covered in vernix caseosa, a greasy white substance that shields her from the amniotic fluid. (picture yourself after a nine-month bath, and the need for protection makes sense.) Vernix caseosa is sometimes still present after birth, especially those of premature babies. Stay tuned, we’ll keep everyone updated.

Kevin went to work for part of today. Grandpa Ly installed the doors on our new wardrobe. And I, I spent a lazy afternoon researching infant products and product safety. My friend Thanh invited me to go shopping at Westminster Mall. With Babies R Us right next door, I couldn’t resist inviting Kevin to join us there after work. We took the opportunity to start our registry (which isn’t even near complete).

There is an overwhelming amount of products available for babies these days. Some products are clearly safer than others. With the numerous ways they seem to be able to get themselves killed and the numerous ways that you can increase their chances of cancer in the future (or so it seems according to all the data available), I prefer to err on the side of caution with our choices. The first department we ran into in the store contained baby bottles. It seems like such a simple item to add and yet, what should you add? BPA free is a clear winner, but is it enough? Should we get glass bottles with silicone covers for shatter protection? What is the best way to prevent a colicky baby? Is it the Playtex bag drop ins or the new vented system? Should we say bollocks to the whole bunch and just go with an old fashioned bottle? Kevin and I decided to take matters into our own hands and do a test! (They also happen to give us a free Born Free BPA free Vented Baby Bottle upon registering) I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how the vented system work so Kevin decided to test it out. Check out the video footage below:

After great deliberation, extensive testing and research, we have decided on the Born Free Vented Glass Bottles with Silicone Sleeves. Kevin’s testing concluded that there was adequate suction power and that the nipple is quite comfortable. We also discovered that previous users could drop the bottle with no shattering, and at worst, a small crack. The silicone sleeve would add an attractive color to the bottle as well as provide the baby with added grip. The glass bottle is durable, attractive and eco-friendly (Playtex would have used approximately 8-10 plastic bags each day). Everyone, we have a winner.