Noah's photoshoot

Full-body view of Noah, he looks like he's sucking his thumb, maybe. Omphalecele also apparent. (We learned how to spell it today.)

Noah's little legs/feet, crossed at the ankles. This is probably what's poking me every day...

Little fist! It's his hand, but his fingers are clenched so they're folded under.

Sucking on the umbilical cord...

Obviously he can't hear me tell him not to put that in his mouth....

Noah's boy parts! We had the tech, Jeff, show us because we found out he was a boy via amnio results. The big blob in the bottom left is his butt.  :)

We had an overall good visit with the doctor today. The Tech was disappointed when we had to schedule our next ultrasound while he is out of town. (Having to plan around Dave's schedule.) We had a minorly traumatic event as we witnessed a massive heart deceleration from 130s to mid 70s. So that was upsetting, but apparently not wholly abnormal. We spoke with Dr. Chao, who is our favorite, aside from Dr. Shipper. He has very good interpersonal skills. Dr. Chao arranged for a neonatologist from the hospital to stop by and meet with us. Dr Savid was helpful in discussing what options we have available - which aren't a lot, but we already knew that. We're planning on delivering at the Fresno hospital, where they'd provide some basic comfort care support. So overall, not a bad visit, but always emotionally draining. We're getting take out for dinner because a) we have no food and b) no energy to cook. 

Warning, the following includes judgmental comments. I'm just letting you know that I know they're judgmental. 

As always, we have many tales of the fall of the human race from sitting in the waiting room. Today's future-mom-of-notice was.... almost indescribable... Dave and I were unbelievably appalled. The office closes for lunch from 12-1pm. Having the appointments right after lunch are good because that hour gives the morning's rush time to even out, and you generally wait less. Well little-miss-Thang obviously didn't notice this, and continued to complain about the wait (they lock the doors until exactly 1pm). While we had to wait with her for 15 minutes, she drank a soda, pulled out some nothing-but-sugar-blue-and-pink candies, proceeded to announce to the other 10 of us waiting to get in that she was a gestational diabetic, but she didn't care since her due date is in 6weeks anyway. "I really shouldn't be eating all this sugar, but who cares." We also learned that this was her 7th child, (she's 31, I checked her birthday when I signed in.... come to think of it, she cut in front of me, but I don't care because I didn't want to have to deal with her); she has a baby girl, and a dead 12-week-old fetus in her that's causes extra fluid build up; she has the mentality of a 10 year old; she was wearing a tube top with a strapped bra. (Ok those last two aren't observations, they're judgements.)  I managed to avoid eye contact enough so that she didn't seek me out as a social companion in the waiting room (thank the Lord), but latched on to a 10year old boy who was there and talked about how many stitches and staples she'd had... There was also discussion of being in and out of jail, but I didn't hear the details, I don't think it was her that was in and out of jail, though, so that's.... good? 

Dave also thinks she's on welfare. Pure speculation, and judgement, but hey, if we can beat .007% odds and have a Trisomy 18 baby, it's almost a safe bet she's on welfare or unemployment. Or both.

When Dave and I over heard that she's had 7 kids, we just about lost it. How in the world can people like this get SEVEN kids and our FIRST has Trisomy 18? Why do bad things happen to good people, and why is stupidity continually recognized and rewarded in our society?!?!

Dr. Horrible

On Saturday night, we had Tyler and Laura over for dinner. After dinner, we watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, a spoofy, pithy, laugh-out-loud mini-musical with a surprisingly serious ending. Written during the massive Writer's Strike in 2009 (?) (Why did I capitalize writer's strike?), it originally was available for free online, but now you can buy it in iTunes or watch it via Netflix. It really is sad it isn't a full-length production, the music is great, lyrics are insightful and fun, and fun characters.

While we were watching it, Penny's song resonated with me:

Here's a story of girl
who grew up lost and lonely
thinking love was fairy tales
and trouble was made only for me

even in the darkness
every color can be found
and every day of rain
brings water flowing 
to things growing in the ground

Grief replaced with pity
for a city barely coping
dreams are easy to achieve
if hope is all I'm hoping to be

Any time you're hurt
there's one who has it worse around
and every drop of rain
will keep you growing seeds you're sowing in the ground

So keep your head up billy buddy.

Maternity Photos

Tada! While Diane was here - in the 45 minutes we had before we had to load everyone in the car to go to the airport - we did a mini-photo shoot of Noah and I. These are some of my favorites.

(Click on any of the photos to make them fullscreen large.)

The photo shoot wasn't hard until later - we were so busy getting everyone out the door, and then driving, and then driving again. But yesterday it was a little hard. I mean, I love the photos, but it's still difficult knowing that we won't have more photos of Noah. Regardless, the photos are a tribute to Diane's photography abilities - since the only light we used was the natural light from our bedroom window.