Little Parnell

One night, Mike patted my belly and asked, “How is little Parnell?” and then proceeded to crack up! After that we both jokingly referred to the baby as Parnell and now it has stuck!! Have no fear – this is not in the pool of actual baby names, but it’s a better alternative right now than calling the baby “it” or alternating between “he” and “she”! So I am 11 weeks and we have been able to see Little Parnell twice! During our first appointment we found out that we were only six and a half weeks along rather than the eight we thought we were so Parnell was itty bitty then and still had the yolk sac attached. But we were able to see the heart flickering away and that there really was something in there and that’s all we cared about! Our next appointment was on April 1st and the doctor decided to do an ultrasound to check my cervix since it was torn when I delivered Colby. Luckily my cervix looked “perfectly healthy” according to the doctor but he is going to check it at 16 weeks just to make sure all looks well. He also gave us some pictures of Parnell at 10 weeks! The difference was absolutely amazing! The little peanut looked 10 times bigger than the pictures from the last ultrasound! We are excited we will get these two extra ultrasounds because seeing the baby is always so reassuring! I am excited to move out of the first trimester and into the second! I have had back to back colds since February and am really looking forward to my immune system picking back up! I started showing very early with Parnell! Right around 8 weeks!! I am already sporting my belly band and maternity tops! I really think it is the baby just pushing all of my chub from Colby up and out but lots of people tell me that you show earlier with the second child so I am going to go with that! We go back to the doctor the end of this month and should find out what Little Parnell’s gender is around mid-June. I’m hoping we get a sneak peak at the 16 week ultrasound though which will put us in late May! Stay tuned for more details on Little Parnell!

6W5D Ultrasound - the big thing that looks like it might be a head is really the yolk sac!  Parnell is just a teeny-tiny thing here!

You can see the waves of Parnell's heartbeat!  Such a reassuring sound!! 

A close up of Parnell!  The big thing is the yolk sac and Parnell is the itty bitty blob underneath it!

10W Ultrasound - Parnell has grown so much and even though you can't see it in the pictures we could see the heart flickering away!  The things at the bottom that look like they might be feet is really the cord!  I thought Parnell was tapping his/her little toes at first but it was just the cord pulsating!  Still very cool!