Those of you who only subscribe to this poor, sporadically-updated blog and don't read Shelby's blog may have missed the news (and the update) that when our adopted daughter comes home with us from China (in about three years -- yes, the wait has gotten longer), she'll already have an older brother or sister waiting for her:
Some of you who know of Shelby's history of heart trouble may be wondering at this turn of events, so let's say up front that this baby is both planned and eagerly anticipated. In addition to Shelby's regular cardiologist, we're working with a very capable high-risk ob/gyn at UCI Medical Center (who has successfully shepherded to delivery a woman whose heart was in the same condition as Shelby's back in the bad old days, when they were this close to putting her on the transplant list.) Shelby has been doing great so far, and we feel that both she and our baby-to-be are being adequately watched over.
Unlike Shelby, I haven't had daily nausea to live with, so this twelve-week ultrasound was where reality really set in -- there's a baby in there! I have so much to do to get ready for you, little boy/girl! Contrast that to the seven-week ultrasound, where we could see its heart beating onscreen, but the ultrasound tech helpfully annotated the static images with the word 'BABY' and an arrow: