Pregnancy is soooooooo SEXY!

This is amusing , but perhaps (well, definitely) TMI, so read at your own risk!

First of all, sorry for my long absence, but Hurricane Ike has certainly put a major damper on my internet access. We evacuated for the storm and didn't return home until our power came back on yesterday. We had relatively little damage, but many other relatives and friends had a lot--some even completely lost their homes and everything in them. It's very sad, but we will help each other get through it. If you are the praying type, please pray for all who have suffered down here on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Now for the nasty part. And I can't stress this enough--TMI ALERT! This story is included strictly for the enjoyment of my pregnancy/mommy blog-oriented readers. Over the past month, I have had increasingly bad pain in my groin area. If you remember, I thought a while back that I might have a hernia, but my doctor said it was probably just bad round ligament pain, a very common pregnancy ailment. I went back to see him yesterday, and I have now developed what's called a vulvar varicosity, which is a nice way of saying I have a gigantic varicose vein in a VERY private place!!! The doc says it will probably go away after I give birth, but in the meantime, I have to wear this lovely contraption called a "V2 supporter." It looks like a giant jock strap and is basically a compression garment designed to squeeze my nether regions into submission for the next three months. It is NOT sexy, but I have to admit the pain is relieved when I am wearing it. The doctor said he has only had to remove two of these veins from people in the past sixteen years since they usually resolve themselves, but he said I would be number three if I didn't wear this god-awful thing until the baby comes. Ugh.

So anyway, if Billy didn't find the actual ailment repulsive enough, now I have to wear this massive elastic chastity belt on top of it. Poor guy! I am one hot mama, let me tell you!

Latest Pics of Butch

Here (s)he is! Isn't (s)he beautiful? In the top one, you can see that Butch has a nice strong heartbeat--166 beats per minute. We got to hear it this time, too--loud and clear and GORGEOUS!

In the second one, you can ALMOST make out a bit of a "real" baby shape. The head is closest to the bottom of the picture, and you can see little arm and leg buds forming. The circle toward the top is the yolk sac, which nourishes the fetus until the placenta forms. It is now almost completely depleted and moving away from the baby. It will dissolve soon, and the placenta will take over.

Dr. Dunn told us that the chance of miscarriage is now less than 3%, so we feel very confident and excited about this pregnancy. He congratulated us on our "graduation" and released us to start seeing our regular OB, Dr. Cone.