14 Weeks Pregnant

Welcome to week 14! Look at my belly! I can see a difference now, can you? I was excited last Thursday when my sister, Laurie, who hadn’t seen me in a couple of weeks, immediately noticed the change. Yay!

Baby is now about 3.5 inches long from crown to rump, and somewhere between 1 and 1 ½ ounces. That seems huge to me! Again, there isn’t much new going on in there since organ development is just about complete, but I’ll tell you about the midwife appointment I had today!

My weight, according to their scale, was 115 pounds, which I think is a good place to be if you’re looking at my pre-pregnancy weight of 111, but at my 10 week appointment I was at 115.5. My midwife concluded that I probably need to start eating and drinking more, which I’m sure is true. Eating is another thing I’m lazy about. As much as I like food, I often don’t eat because I don’t feel like making anything. She gave me a nutritional guidelines handout, and the sample menu on the back includes three meals and three snacks totaling 2200 calories. (Travis has always said I eat like a Hobbit: first and second breakfast, first and second lunch, afternoon tea, etc. etc…) Anyway, I guess it looks doable. Oh, and I need to start exercising again, too! She gave me a few specific exercises to do in addition to just walking or whatever else I want to do.

We brought the video camera to try to record the heartbeat, and she was happy to let us do that, but she couldn’t get the Doppler to pick it up clearly enough to bother. L The problem was that the baby was right underneath one of my arteries, so it was picking up my heartbeat instead of the baby’s. She said it was great that I have such good blood flow in there, though. The other problem was that when she was able to pick up the baby’s heartbeat more clearly, it would move and she would lose it after a couple seconds. That was actually really funny, though, and we were glad the baby was moving around so much. She said it seems like a very active baby, which is great now, but I hope it isn’t a sign of what’s to come in the toddler years! Anyway, we got to hear tons of little thuds, and she told us the heartbeat was about 156, which is good. I can’t wait til I can feel all of that movement! Should only be another month or so!

Earlier today, I went to a place called Accurate Diagnostics to have my prenatal blood tests done. They test for Rh factor and all kinds of other things that pertain to pregnancy. I guess I’ll finally find out what my blood type is! Anyway, I always have a hard time with blood tests because I have tiny veins and low blood pressure. She poked me once with a regular needle and once with a butterfly needle before we collectively decided that I should come back tomorrow and work on being better hydrated in the meantime. I’ve been drinking water all day since then. I hope it helps!!!

I talked to the people at the doctor’s office about that $500 bill. I asked them to break down the charges for me so I would know exactly what I was paying for. After I insisted that I had specifically asked not to have a full panel of blood work done, which was one of the charges, they discovered that because of a type-o on their part, I was overcharged. However, that only takes about $50 off of the bill. I guess the good thing is that they have to re-process it and send it back to the insurance company and everything, so if nothing else, we get some extra time to come up with the money. She also advised me that if I ever want a check-up again, I should give them a specific reason why. Like, even if I just said I was tired all the time or something, then they would bill the insurance company differently and they would probably pay a lot more of the bill. Good to know.

Since we have no way of knowing whether our house is going to sell before the baby arrives, I’ve been thinking a lot about where we would put the baby if we are still here. We really wanted to set up a nursery, but it would have to be in the room where I teach some of my piano lessons, and I really don’t want to move my piano and all of my books and everything downstairs where there really isn’t any room for it all. I guess my current thought is, if we haven’t sold the house yet, we’ll just put a bassinet and a dresser with a changing pad on top in our room until the baby is big enough to need a crib, at which point we will have hopefully sold the house. We can put a lot of the baby’s stuff in the closet in the piano room, which is filled with a bunch of random junk right now. I’m starting to feel the nesting urge to clean it out before we have a bunch of baby things that we need to find a place for. I might start that project this weekend.

Travis and I have been doing better (but not great) with our commitment to better ourselves. At least we’re heading in the right direction. Travis has been doing a little painting and working on a short children’s book that he hopes to publish. It is the cutest book ever (!!!), about two cats and their humans. The title is Maynard and the Quest for Solitude, and he says he hopes to write more (Maynard and the__________). He is also doing better than I am with the exercising.

I have been working on music here and there, though not for an hour a day as planned, and I have posted my music playing services on Craigslist. I did happen to get a $15 gig accompanying for a voice student at this Thursday’s recital (in which I have seven piano students performing). That was pure luck, though. I’m not even on the accompanist list. I had some traumatic accompanying experiences in college. I could never learn the music as fast as they wanted, so eventually people stopped asking me. I had a lot of traumatic college experiences that I wish I could get over.

Sorry, I’ll try to stop being depressing. You know what? I need to thank you all for taking the time to read about my experiences, thoughts, and concerns. Even though I don’t hear back from most of you, I know you’re there, and it means a lot. I would enjoy getting some feedback from you all, though, if you feel like offering it. Most of you have my email address and/or my facebook…

Lastly, my poor dad had an accident on some crazy contraption at work last Thursday and ended up with a broken arm, a broken heel/ankle, and a sore back that is hopefully just temporarily knocked out of whack. He has to be in a wheelchair/in bed for several weeks (like, 12), and all he seems to be worried about is everyone else! He doesn’t want anyone to worry, and he feels bad that he has to rely on other people (mostly Jen) to do things for him. We saw him on Sunday and he was in surprisingly good spirits and seemed optimistic. Today he had surgery on the broken heel/ankle, which apparently went well, but it was still numb when I talked to him after. I just hope the pain will subside soon and that he’ll heal up fast! Anyway, keep him in your thoughts please.

That’s all! Sorry it was such a long one! J

13 Weeks Pregnant

Sorry I’m late with this again! There’s a lot going on, and most of it isn’t fun. I’ll start with the baby, though.

There isn’t a lot new going on in there, but…I’M IN MY SECOND TRIMESTER!! The first one flew by. Baby is apparently the length of a Nutter Butter, or about three inches, crown to rump. Vocal cords are forming, and the head is becoming more proportionate to the body. We get to hear the heartbeat again in a week, and I can’t wait!

I still haven’t told my students yet. I planned to last week, but since I’m really not showing yet I decided to wait longer, at least until after next week’s appointment. I can tell that I’m not as thin as I was, but it isn’t obvious to other people. I did get to try out my belly band last weekend. Most of my pants sit kind of low, so I have no trouble buttoning them, but I have one higher-waisted pair of corduroys that I could BARELY fasten sucking in, so I left them undone and used the belly band, which was surprisingly comfortable and stayed put well. Glad I bought them!

I measured my belly and weighed myself, which I plan to do at the end of each trimester. Pre-pregnancy, I was 112 pounds and my waist was 26 inches, though I can't remember if I was measuring my true waist or not. Now I am 113 pounds and the biggest part of my belly is 31 1/2 inches around. I think the lack of weight gain is due to muscle loss. :-(

Now for the not so fun stuff. Bills. Bills, bills, bills. We keep getting medical bills we weren’t expecting. Remember that appointment I had in mid-August? I wanted to just get a physical and get my thyroid gland checked since it had come up low on a previous blood test, and I knew hypothyroidism wouldn’t be good in pregnancy. Well, it cost us $500, which wouldn’t be quite so annoying if it had been worth it, but there was nothing wrong with me. There never is anything wrong with me when I go to the doctor. I swear I’m never going again. I’m going to call them today to see if they can possibly reduce it. I know they’ll let me pay it in increments, but even so, it’s still $500.

Since this was not the first time we’ve received a bill like this, it was sort of the last straw for me. Very upsetting, but very motivating. We need to make more money if we ever want to dig ourselves out of the financial hole we are in. It would be nice if we could sell our house, too, but we have no control over that, which is also very frustrating. I could go on forever about that, but I won’t, because you know what I mean.

So…how can we make more money? We had a long talk about it and told each other, as we have before, that we both have talents we are not utilizing. Travis could be selling paintings, and I could be getting playing gigs. The problem is motivation. We are both lazy. Travis likes to paint, but he says he would rather write a book, which has the potential for a more lucrative outcome, but one that is much less immediate. He has finished paintings that he could sell right now if he made the effort to advertise somehow. It’s also hard to let go of something that you put so much of yourself into. I get that. I adore some of his paintings, but I know someone else would too, and maybe they would pay a good amount of money for them.

Travis’s laziness is more forgivable than mine, though. He has a full-time teaching job that is exhausting. Who can blame him if he doesn’t feel like doing much when he gets home? I’m lazy for no good reason. I’m sort of an all-or-nothing person. If I get up late, which happens a lot, I feel like I’ve wasted half the day already, so I might as well waste the rest of it. I know that’s faulty logic, but I guess that’s just how my brain works. When I get up at a reasonable time, around when Travis leaves for work, I get a lot done. This morning I got up while Travis was in the shower and actually made him a bacon, egg and cheese English muffin to eat in the car. That never happens. Poor Travis usually doesn’t eat anything all day until he gets home, because lazy me doesn’t pack him a lunch either. Anyway, I’ve gotten a lot done this morning: two loads of laundry, tidying up, figured out dinner… can I do this every day? We’ll see.

Travis set a goal for both of us yesterday: we will each spend at least an hour a day either exercising or practicing/painting/somehow bettering ourselves. (Exercising is another thing we’ve been lazy about.) I think I’ll try to spend a half hour exercising (don’t worry, I won’t go overboard) and an hour practicing and/or reacquainting myself with my music history book. I might give myself Wednesdays off since I teach eight lessons on Wednesdays.

I’m going to make myself available for Christmas gigs on Craigslist. I did that last year and got a few (though unfortunately I had to miss one because our steep driveway was covered with ice). Then by the time Christmas is over, maybe I’ll have some other music ready to perform. I could do weddings, but they make me SO nervous! A wedding is the one day in someone’s life you do not want to mess up, and being nervous makes me mess up…so it’s a vicious cycle.

This isn’t JUST about making money, though. I know that if we both stick with doing what we’re doing and nothing more, we’re going to look back someday and be disappointed. We’re just getting by. We want to do more, and be more, and we need to start on that path before we bring a baby into it. So the clock is ticking. Here we go.

12 Weeks Pregnant

Happy Halloween! Travis and I didn’t dress up this year, but maybe we should have since it’s our last just-the-two-of-us Halloween! Oh well. Travis says that the baby dressed up as me. J

On Thursday night we went up to North Carolina to see a Halloween movie with our friends Eric and Valerie. It’s hard to explain what the movie was…it was the guys who used to do Mystery Science Theater 3000, making fun of a horror film made in 1959. It was called Rifftrax Live: House on Haunted Hill. Anyway, it was pretty amusing. Then on Saturday we went to my Dad’s house for a bonfire with his neighbors and a bunch of their friends. It was fun, and nice to meet the neighbors that we hadn’t met yet. Then last night we passed out candy and watched The Exorcist. Last year it was The Shining, which I thought was much scarier. The Exorcist wasn’t that bad, but I did jump once, and the baby probably did too!

The baby is now over two inches long from crown to rump. Here’s a picture of the 12 week rubber fetus that we got from the fair. Sorry it’s blurry!

The baby is starting to grow lanugo (fine hair) all over its body, which will disappear by the time it is born. The intestines, which were protruding into the umbilical cord, are moving back into the abdomen now. It should be moving a lot more now, and has reflexes that would cause it to move away if poked from the outside. It might even be sucking its thumb now! It also might be making breathing movements and swallowing, already preparing itself for life outside the womb.

I guess this is going to be a short blog, because I don’t have much else to talk about this week! I’m excited to be nearing the end of the first trimester, excited to start showing (can you see a difference yet?), and getting ready to share the news with my students and their parents.

Have a great week!

11 Weeks Pregnant

Well, we managed to do the belly shot this week, and I'm doing the blog on time! I should probably start updating on Sundays now, because as I've said, that's really when my weeks change. My Sundays were too busy before because I was accompanying the youth choir at church, which practices on Sunday afternoons, but unfortunately there isn't enough interest from the youth to keep it going right now.

Still no real belly changes yet, but I hear that most women start to notice a change around 12 weeks...so it won't be long! I keep doing belly shots anyway, just to make sure I won't miss the first change. There are definitely times when I feel big, but I think it's just when I'm full. :-)

The baby is about two inches long now, which, according to one of my books as well as one of the websites I go to, is the size of a lime. I always think of a lime as being bigger than that, but my mom thought it sounded about right. To me, two inches is more like the size of a plum or a clementine.

While we're on the subject of the baby's size, it is apparently supposed to double in the next

three weeks! Talk about rapid growth. The head is

starting to uncurl and the neck is straightening out and lengthening. Fingernails are forming, and one of my friends from high school was telling me that fingerprints are also developing! I read that fingerprints are the result of the swishing around of the amniotic fluid, but I'm sort of skeptical of that explanation. First of all, how

could they know that for sure? Secondly, if that were the case, wouldn't we have fingerprint-like grooves all over our entire bodies? Who knows. Also along with the fingernails come hair follicles and tooth buds...and I'm so glad for that, because wouldn't we all look like freaks without teeth, hair, and nails?? It does still have transparent skin, though. Weird.

I had a really nice birthday! Well...my actual birthday was very busy...I worked on cleaning the house in the morning because we were meeting with a new realtor later, and then I taught lessons, and then Travis got home and cleaned some more, and then the realtor came...but we really liked her and have high hopes that she'll do a better job than the last one! Travis bought me some really pretty roses and a balloon, and then took me out to Ruby Tuesday's (I love their salad bar!), and then we rented a movie. Then on Saturday we had a birthday party at my Dad's house, which was so much fun! My sisters and their families came, and my Aunt Holly was down from Pennsylvania. We had a blast together, and everyone totally catered to my food requests...chicken casserole, potato cheese casserole (I'm a casserole girl), broccoli slaw, homemade bread, hello dollies, and pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream! DELICIOUS! I got a necklace I'd been wanting, a couple of Target gift cards, and some cash. :-) My brother and his wife mailed me a whole bunch of maternity clothes (yay!), and Travis got me a cute t-shirt and a book called Getting Ready for Baby: The Ultimate Organizer for the Mom-to-Be, in addition to the owl (whose name is now Mishka). Then yesterday, when we got home from church, Travis's sister Rachel and her husband Jason were sitting in front of our house to surprise me with pumpkins to carve! His mom (Faye) and brother Nathan also came over, and we all made jack-o-lanterns while we enjoyed brownies that Faye made. It was so unexpected and fun! Here's a picture of them, unfortunately unlit because we need to find our tea lights.

Left to right: Nathan's, Jason's, Travis's, Rachel's, mine.

We went to Target last night to use my gift cards, and I got two "Be Bands," which I'd been wanting.

They basically hold up your pants and support your belly, so you can wear non-maternity pants unbuttoned. You can also wear them over maternity pants that are still too big. While we were there, we also looked at baby stuff, which was fun. We looked at this travel system (stroller and car seat) that we are considering, which is a Graco Alano Flip-It. It's called that because the handle flips so you can push it with the baby facing either toward you or facing out. I'm surprised that more strollers don't have that feature. Some do, but most of them are very expensive. Anyway, I would post a photo, but it's so hard to get the photos where I want them in these things that I don't want to mess with it again tonight! :-) Maybe next time. See you then!

10 Weeks (and 3 days) Pregnant

Sorry for the delay this week! We've been quite busy with lots of things, and I probably could have done the blog on Monday, but I wanted to include a belly shot, which we hadn't done yet, and we STILL haven't done! Ugh. So unless we do it today, there will be no 10 week belly shot. I don't think I'm any bigger, though. My belly seems to fluctuate quite a bit from day to day, and even throughout the day.

I do have exciting news this week: the baby has graduated to fetus-hood! This means that it has lost its tail and has most of the organs and body parts that it will ever have. They just need to grow and mature. Its little kidneys are producing very small amounts of urine already, and if it's a boy, it is producing testosterone! The crown to rump length was about an inch and a half (or a little less) as of Sunday, and its weight was about four grams, or the weight of four paper clips. The other exciting thing about being 10 weeks into this is that I'm already a quarter of the way done! Actually, that's kind of scary!

We had our first midwife appointment yesterday! We filled out some paperwork, got a goody bag, and talked about some of the choices we have to make regarding what tests we want to have done (or not have done), what interventions we are comfortable with surrounding the birth, etc. We are actually very excited about getting the opportunity to make these decisions, since many unnecessary tests and interventions are performed routinely in the world of obstetrics.

We also got to hear the heartbeat for the first time! Yes, we were able to see it at the ultrasound, but it was too early to hear it then. The midwife used a fetal Doppler, which is similar to a sonogram machine because it sends sound waves into the amniotic fluid, which bounce back in the form of swishes and thuds that we hear as the baby's heartbeat. The baby is very low because it of its small size this early in the pregnancy, and it was slightly off center, closer to my right side. The heartbeat was 160 beats per minute this time, so maybe I was wrong when I said that it begins to slow down in the fourth month. I hope that those of you who know more about this stuff than I do will correct me if I give misinformation! I'm just going by what I've read, which is often contradictory. It's hard to know where to look for the most accurate information. We also heard a couple of thuds, which the midwife told us were the baby's movements! I could have listened all day. :-) Oh, another cool thing was that we could hear my heartbeat and the baby's at the same time -- I've never had two heartbeats before!

Last weekend we went to Columbia to see Stephanie and Marcus (my college roommate and her fiance). We had tons of fun! We met them at the state fair, so we got to eat some fair food, ride on the ferris wheel, pet the animals... :-P When we got there, the smells of all of the food booths wafting around and mixing together were making me kind of sick, and they all thought it was funny that I would rather go see the animals and endure the smell of cow manure.

We stopped by the pro-life booth so I could get a free rubber fetus, and when I told them I was pregnant they gave me a little goody bag with stickers and a pamphlet about fetal development. :-) The rubber fetus is a life size detailed 12 week fetus, so it will be neat to look at in a couple of weeks! Anyway, Stephanie and I didn't notice it, but after we left the booth, Travis and Marcus said that the pro-life ladies seemed to think I was a teenager. Oh well. I do worry about people thinking that, because I know I look young. I guess the only people who would think that are people who don't know me, so it doesn't really matter.

Travis gave me one of my birthday presents yesterday because I wasn't feeling well (I had a migraine) and needed a pick-me-up. It is ADORABLE! He said it's for the baby's room, but I'm totally keeping it (just kidding)! He needs a name...any ideas? He's even cuter in person. His feet and beak are more purple. He's my new cuddle buddy. Sorry, Travis. :-)

Be back next week...hopefully on Monday!!

9 Weeks Pregnant

I'm back! And I have belly shots! Travis says he thinks I'm starting to show a bit, and I guess I'm noticing it too. Take a look for yourself:

This week, the baby is looking much more human! He or she is about the size of a green olive now, and is probably moving around! According to the documentary, In The Womb, all movements are totally reflexive right now. I think the brain takes over movements at around 4 months gestation. The heart is also not yet controlled by the brain, which is why the heartbeat is so fast. It will continue to get faster until the brain takes control of it, also around 4 months. The eyes are fully formed, but aren't functioning yet. Eyelids are almost fused now, and will remain shut until 25 weeks or so. All of the organs are present and just need to be refined. Also, fingers are separate now, and toes are only slightly webbed. Yay!

As for me, I'm starting to feel different. I'm finally starting to get the symptoms that most people get by 8 weeks. I'm having plenty of food aversions, especially to ground beef. Blech. I'm picky about what I feel like eating, in general. I can always stomach fruit, and usually vegetables. It's not that other things really make me sick (at least not usually), they just taste terrible sometimes. I'm also more tired now. I'm taking lots of naps and sometimes going to bed at 10:00, which is a very rare occurrence for me. I'm a late night person. Even though my symptoms still aren't that bad, I'm hoping they will abate in a few weeks!

Like most parents-to-be, Travis and I can hardly wait to find out what we're having (I told Travis maybe it'll be a puppy!). There are these gender prediction tests on the market that are called Intelligender, and they are supposed to be able to tell the baby's gender with 80% accuracy after week 10. However, they are pricey (around $30). I would probably be willing to spend that much if it were more accurate, but I see no point in it if we still won't know whether it's a boy or a girl.

So, I looked up other methods of gender prediction online and found the red cabbage test. Basically, you cut up a red cabbage, boil it for 10 minutes, and use the dark purple water as a pH test, which is what Intelligender is. So, yesterday, we bought a small red cabbage (for 52 cents!) and did the test. (Even though Intelligender is supposed to be used after 10 weeks, I read that this test should be done BEFORE 10 weeks. Who knows whether the author knew what they were talking about.) There was plenty of water to play with, so we put some in a each of several Styrofoam cups. First, just to make sure it worked, we added lemon juice to one cup, vinegar to another, and root beer to another. The lemon juice and vinegar immediately turned the water to bright pink. The root beer had no effect, so I guess it was non-acidic.

Here is the cabbage as it was boiling:

Can you tell how dark purple the water is?

Ok, so here's how this is supposed to work: you put the cabbage water in a cup and then add an equal amount of urine (sorry, I know that's gross). If the water turns red/pink, it's a boy, and if it stays purple or turns bluish, it's a girl. Keep in mind, this is not a very accurate test. We just did it for fun.

And...here are the results:

The cup on the right is the one we added root beer to, but I used it as the control since there was no change at all. That's basically what the cabbage water looked like before we added anything. The one on the left is the lemon juice. I didn't add much lemon juice at all, and it immediately changed to pink. The one in the middle is the gender test. On the picture, it looks as bright as the lemon juice, but it was nowhere near the same color in person. It was really halfway between purple and pink. Here's a better picture of it transfered into a jar:

This one shows the color better. I'd say this is inconclusive! It might fall more under the boy category. What do you all think? I feel like it's a girl, but I've heard of plenty of expectant mothers who had a strong feeling that ended up being wrong! My dad thinks it's a girl too, and he says he almost always gets it right. Travis isn't sure. I think he might be leaning toward boy. So who knows! I have added a poll on the sidebar so you can all put in your two cents! Vote away!

8 Weeks Pregnant - Ultrasound!!!

So much has happened this week, but I can't bear to save the best for last...I'm gonna jump right in. I had an ultrasound today! And here's the photo! I couldn't wait to show everyone!

She said the baby is measuring right on at 8 weeks. We could see the heartbeat, which was going strong at 172 BPM. They said that was good. I think that's on the fast side if what I've read is accurate, but I know too fast is better than too slow.

And now I will attempt to explain what everything is without being able to point: the head is at the bottom. It's pretty big at this point compared to the body, and it's supposed to be. The little dark spot on the head is actually an open space where the brain is growing. The little thing sticking out on the left side is an arm. :-) It has arms! It has legs, too, but you can't really see them on this photo. You can see the outline of part of the amnion (the little sac the baby is in). It's the curvy line that starts on the right side of the feet and goes down toward the head. The large black area is the outer gestational sac. The amnion will eventually fill the whole gestational sac. We could see the yolk sac to the left of the baby's feet. It's pretty small compared to the baby now, because the placenta is getting ready to take over nourishment duty. And in the words of Forrest Gump, "That's about all I have to say about that."

I can't even express how relieved I am to see that there is actually a living baby in there! It's the right size, everything looks perfect so far, the heartbeat is great -- it's been hard to believe that I really am pregnant, and of course there is always worry that something will go wrong. Now that we've seen the heartbeat, the chance of miscarriage drops to just 2% from about 20%.

A funny thing that happened at the ultrasound: the tech said she could see my bladder filling up before her very eyes. :-) They made me drink lots of water beforehand.

An annoying thing that happened at the ultrasound: she asked if I have a high tolerance for pain, since I am planning to have a natural birth. I just think it's something women are built to handle. Don't imply that I may not be able to bear the pain. I don't need to hear that.

My amazing, wonderful husband just went to the store to get ice cream and root beer, and then made me a float and brought it to me because I've been wanting one all day! :-)

I want to hurry up and get this thing posted, so I won't go on and on about all of the other stuff that happened this week. Suffice it to say that the DMV has sent me a notice stating that my license will be suspended on the 20th of this month if I don't pay my speeding ticket from two months ago by then. I sent the payment in on time, but the person I talked to at the municipal court said they never received it. I have sent a new payment and I need to call tomorrow to see if they got it. They better have! I am having my original money order tracked, and hopefully I will get a refund for it.

Also, we took my car to get fixed today (the check engine light has been on forever), and I gave them the wrong car key. I'm blaming it on pregnancy brain. So we had to go back after the ultrasound and give them the right one, and then they couldn't fix it anyway. They had to refer us to some muffler place. Ugh.

Ok, more about ultrasounds really quick: I was able to make an appointment to have a FREE ultrasound at Greenville Tech on January 19th to find out the gender. I was hoping to schedule it before Christmas so that we could sort of give ourselves a present, but they were booked already. They can usually tell the gender at 18 weeks or so, and I'll be 23 weeks when we find out. At least if the baby is a little bigger and more developed, there might be less room for error.

I think that's everything for now! I just can't wait for everyone to see the little raspberry (that's about how big it is now)! And no belly shot again this week...still no belly to show. :-) Have a great week!