Victoria’s cousin, Sandy, was in town this weekend and saw her for the first time since we found out she was expecting.  She was surprised at how much Victoria was showing already.

It has been funny watching Victoria over the past couple of weeks.  My cousin, uncle, and 2nd cousin visited last weekend and Victoria was showing off her stomach then.  She loves for everyone to touch her growing stomach and doesn’t mind showing her bare belly in public.  I think it is pretty cool that she feels this way.

Now to the “official diagnosis”.  Sandy made the comment that she feels we are going to have a boy because of how Victoria is carrying.  That’s good enough for me.  Time to sign that golf contract, baseball contract, etc…

Now don’t get me wrong, I am just having fun with this.  Prior to the pregnancy, I always said two boys is what I want but after we found out Victoria was pregnant, my tune changed.  I am just looking forward to having and raising a child — no matter what sex.

But for now, I hold Sandy’s comment as an “official diagnosis” on the baby’s sex.  I mean come on, she is as qualified as anyone (she has a boy and girl).  Now only if we can get Sandy and Phil to train us how to be great parents — they have done such a wonderful job with their kids!

Victoria went shopping with her Mom and Catherine last week and pick out a few things for Baby Woodruff.  Here are the first “noise makers” and a couple of cute outfits.  Take a look at what the outfits have printed on the front.   (As always, click on the thumbnails to see a larger view.)

Back by popular demand…more belly pics.

These were taken today and as you can see, she is showing quite a bit.

Some are suggesting there are twins and one of them has been hiding during the ultrasounds.

Here are a few more pictures of Victoria taken on June 9th.

Victoria and I went to have some additional screening done today. Part of this screening process included an ultrasound and a couple of extra treats for us!

Baby Woodruff was cooperating today! We got excellent shots from the ultrasound. They are at the bottom of this posting.

One of the extras we weren’t expecting was to hear the heartbeat. The ultrasound device they have at this office was much more sophisticated and it was able to do infrared as well as pick up a heartbeat. The doctor flipped the switch and caught Victoria and I off guard. We heard the fluttering heartbeat — it was beating away at 156 beats per minute. That was AMAZING!

As I was writing down the stats on our future Olympian (156 bpm), the doctor then switched on the 3-D view on the ultrasound. Victoria said, “Look, Donnie!” I looked up and I was amazed. I actually started to tear up a little bit — what a proud moment for the both of us. I am still getting chills typing about it right now. I am going to be a “basket case” when it is time for the birth! Oh, well — that is what this experience is all about. Be sure to check out the print out of the 3-D view below. It doesn’t look quite as amazing as it did in person, but you can definitely make out the facial features and 1 or 2 arms.

The baby was quite active and was jumping around. Imagine lying on your back and bouncing up and down. That’s what he/she did a couple of times during the ultrasound. At one point, it moved its arm as though it was waving at us. Pretty cool!

What an amazing day for us!!!!!!!

Well here are the pictures (click on them to see full size):

3D Ultrasound here –>

Today was suppose to be another big day.  It was, but it didn’t start out as expected.  We were suppose to hear the heartbeat using a doppler listening device.  Well, Baby Woodruff was not cooperating today.  Evidently, he/she has not moved up and out of the pelvic area just yet.  This makes it hard for the doppler device to pick up a heartbeat and makes for two very nervous parents-to-be.  The doctor says this is normal and that by our next visit, we will be able to hear the heartbeat.  Great…another thing I have to wait for.  😉

Jaime warned us that it would be hard to find the heartbeat and said it may take a little while.  After a couple of minutes of trying, the doctor decided to do an ultrasound so she could make sure everything was fine.  Again, it took a little while.  Victoria and I were starting to get nervous and then all of a sudden there he/she was — big head and the fluttering heartbeat!  That was a major relief for the both of us.

Previously, I promised that we would have the next ultrasound on the camera phone but I ran in technical problems this go around.  So, no videos this time either.  Most of you are probably going to think I am technically challenged and probably don’t understand how I can hold down my job if I can’t get my simple camera phone to work.

Victoria tells me I need to practice more with it.  Honestly, it recorded this time but when I tried to read the file from the disk it said it was corrupt.  If I have some free time, I’ll see if I can somehow get the files off the disk.

For now, just imagine a big head on the left hand side of the ultrasound screen and the heart just fluttering away.

Victoria weighed 109 lbs today and her blood pressure was 110/60.

Victoria and I attended Jaime’s baby shower this weekend.  Jaime is the girl that works with me and has moved into our neighborhood.

Jaime knows that I keep up with pregnancy information and that I am not afraid to ask her stupid questions about being pregnant.  She had a few friends at her shower as well as her mom, mother-in-law, and some other people we both know from work.  They started to play those baby shower games and I joined in (my first mistake).  The first one was to venture a guess on the baby’s weight, length, and birth date.

How hard could this be?  3 women went before me and I had inside information from Jaime per our baby discussions at work.  I couldn’t screw this one up.  Right?  WRONG!  It gets to me (the only guy sitting in the room — her husband had stepped into the kitchen — smart man).  Everyone is looking and listening and I say, “19 pounds 4 ounces”.  I didn’t even realize what I said.  Jaime shoots me a look and says “19 pounds” and I say “yeah”.  Then I realize how stupid I just sounded.  All my credibility with the women and my wife was wiped away in an instant!

So, let me explain…  I intended to say 19 inches and 7 pounds 4 ounces.  That all merged together into “19 pounds 4 ounces”.  Oh well, everyone had a good laugh at my expense.

A side note, I did horrible in “guess the type of baby food” — I got one right (and I cheated on that one).  I guess I have a lot of learning to do.

It is funny to watch how Victoria has approached announcing her news to people. One of those times was when she announced it to our dentist. Sure, most of you are saying that is no big deal and probably necessary (so no x-rays will be taken), but let me give you the whole story…

It was Friday, May 25th and it was only about 6 hours since our visit to the doctor’s office and the “official confirmation”. We were in Maggie Moo’s in City Center getting some ice cream. Dr. Blaney our dentist was standing in front of us. Victoria said hello and decided to tell Dr. Blaney she was pregnant. He congratulated us and then treated us to some ice cream. Ok, what was wrong with this? Well, consider for a moment that we hadn’t told anyone in our families just yet (that was still two days away). All I could think of was that her parents might run into Dr. Blaney the next day and he might say something about seeing Victoria and her being pregnant. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and the secret was safe.

It is funny to watch her when she tells people. She kind of has a knack for just dropping it on people. I guess there is really no ice breaker when it comes to announcing your pregnancy to friends, co-workers, or even strangers. Maybe you can start with…”I’ve been really tired lately” or “I’ve been urinating a lot lately” — and then drop it on them — “I am pregnant”….

Or maybe Victoria’s approach is the best way…

I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that we take walks around our neighborhood. We used to jog quite a bit around the neighborhood and most of the active people in the neighborhood know who’s who. We don’t actually know any of the “regulars” names but say hi as we walk or jog by. There is one lady that we see jogging all the time. Since we see her all the time, its almost as though she is a friend of ours. Remember, we don’t know her name. Well, we went for a walk tonight and this lady was out walking with a couple of her friends. As we approached her she says, “Are you walking to keep it fit.” [Pointing to Victoria’s stomach.] I smiled and Victoria smiled. Then I looked quickly at Victoria’s stomach to see if there was a neon sign on it that said “Baby on board”. Nope, no sign. Ok, maybe she had grown several inches since I last checked. Nope, no large increase in the stomach. Heck, she is still hardly showing. So needless to say, I had a perplexed look on my face. How did she know Victoria was pregnant?!?!?

Well, I turned to Victoria and asked her how the lady knew. She informed me that during Victoria’s walk this morning, this lady was out jogging. Some quick background information about this lady — this lady normally trains for marathons and when she runs she is in a zone and does not say hi too often or acknowledge you’re there. She is really zoned in on her jogging. Well, sweet and glowing Victoria was out taking her morning walk as the lady was jogging. All in a flash, Victoria said, “Hi, hi. How are you? I am pregnant.” The lady didn’t even stop, but turned and said “Congratulations!”. That’s my wife and the future mother of our child. Loves to share her pregnancy with anyone and everyone no matter what they are doing.

The most we have ever said to this lady in the past was “hi” or “how are you”. Now Victoria has decided to drop the “big one” on her.

I got a laugh out of this and we are still laughing now as I am typing this entry.

As most of you have figured out, we have not been keeping up with the blog too much lately. We have had 3 weddings in the past 5 weeks and it has been keeping us busy.

We have one more wedding later this month and then we can get back to enjoying our time together as parents-to-be.  Our next wedding won’t be until late in October and then we will probably take a break until next April.

Victoria has been sneaking a couple of my brownie bars that I eat for a snack at work.  I am convinced the baby is going to be a chocolate lover.

To stay healthy, Victoria has taken up walking.  She misses running but continues to try to exercise as much as she can.  She takes walks almost on a daily basis in the morning.  We also walk in the evenings a few times a week.

She went to Dyna-Moms for a 2nd time last week and plans to go at least twice this week.  She has not had any morning sickness and we feel it is because she has managed her pregnancy pretty well so far.  Only 6+ months to go…