New Baby!

It's a boy!  He moves a lot and is happily bumping around in there. Here he is at 20-some weeks with his hand in his mouth.

As my OB/GYN said at one appointment, this pregnancy has been just a little TOO exciting.

FIRST, we found that I had antibodies against "little c" antigen.  That is the same phenomenon that happens with the more common D antigen, otherwise known as "Rhesus factor".  So, little c is another antigen present on blood cells that moms can develop antibodies to if they are negative, and their first baby is positive.  Then, if there is any contact between those antibodies and second baby's blood, those fetal red blood cells are attacked and the second baby can become anemic. Unfortunately, little c antigen is rare enough that there is no treatment for it (like they have Rhogam against D antigen), except for fetal transfusion - which is scary and has some risks. So, constant monitoring of antibody titers and baby's blood flow throughout the pregnancy. So far, they have stayed low despite Mina thumping my belly and saying "hey baby".

NEXT, we did a genetic screen and learned that I am a cystic fibrosis carrier!  Yikes!  This was unexpected, seeing as we don't have any cystic fibrosis in the family (and it is actually less common in Asians than Caucasians).  This news put us on the edge of our seats while we waited for Dan to get tested.  The test results took ages to come back which caused a significant amount of stress, but luckily Dan is negative.  Phew.  That means no risk to the baby although he might be a carrier.

FINALLY, you'd think that would be the end of surprises, but during our 20-week ultrasound, baby's brain ventricles were measuring a little on the large size.  So, we followed up with more sonograms, which showed further increases in one ventricle after 2 weeks. This measurement showed borderline ventriculomegaly (~9.5 mm), and borderline asymmetry too (~2.5 mm larger than the other ventricle). A followup with an MRI gave similar results, which means something else to track throughout development.

"Mina like blueberriiieeeees."

Sensory Play with Gel Beads

This was one activity that actually kept Mina occupied for more than a few seconds.  In fact the sun went down and everything, so we had to move the fun into the bathtub (probably a better place for it overall).

This "gel bead" activity is another one that came from pinterest.   Gel beads are easily available on Amazon but are usually used for decorations, like centerpieces at weddings.  Here I added only about a tablespoon of dehydrated beads and some food coloring to each bowl of water and let them sit for a few hours.  

 The beads inflated to 10 times their size were were an absolute ball to play with!

Mixed all the beads together in no time at all

Boston, MA - ASM

The American Society of Microbiology is growing bigger (~11,000 attendees), so there are only a few places they can still hold such a large meeting - like the convention center in Boston, MA.

Bill Gates was our opening speaker and talked about his global health initiatives with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Poster for the most recent ABMM Diplomates

Meeting Dan's best buddy, Rod.  Rod and his wife Molly recently had a baby, Sebastian, who is about 3 months old.

  

Hanging out at the hotel

Dan took Mina to a local park

Birthday cake

Queens County Farm Museum

Alex is in the same day care class as Mina and his mom invited us to join them at the Queens County Farm.  It was a small farm but it wasn't crowded at all and was a great place for the kiddos to get up close and personal with the animals. 

Gazing at the ponies

Alex feeding weeds to the goats

Little daredevil is starting to climb on everything

They had "touch", "smell" and even "eat" plant sections that the kids got to play with