baby animal print

i love these baby animal prints. i think they'd look adorable in the baby's room. scott likes the giraffe, but i love the lamb one (though the giraffe is very cute).

for lauren: pillows & throws

structured pillows from west elm

pottery barn throw (i like the pattern, even though i wish it had some more blue in it)

more pottery barn throws

an adorable textured pillow from one of my favorite etsy shops (they have a million different colors and patterns)

adorable baby shower invitations

isn't it cute? image via bon a tirer letterpress

baby registry

this is a lot harder than i expected. right now i have a registry at target for most of our baby needs, and then at land of nod for some more stuff, and then at giggle.com for some more miscellaneous stuff. i feel like that might be too many places for a baby registery, but i can't find everything i love on one website! ah!!! thoughts? target has all the basic stuff we want, land of nod has more stuff and the bedding we fell in love with, and giggle has just random stuff that we love (like the sleepsacks i can't find anywhere else).

i love etsy

i seriously want everything from etsy. from pillows to jewelry to baby things, i absolutely love etsy. now i want a million things for our little boy (if you can't tell that from previous posts). look at these little baby loafers. so cute!!

i wish you could register on etsy. why is that not allowed? also, does anyone else think that registering for baby is super difficult? i've been going through our target registry like crazy, and also started a registry on crate & barrel's baby shop, land of nod. i found the bedding i want for our little guy at land of nod. it's so adorable.

boy stuff

first of all this little boy is adorable, and second: i love this little shirt. i found it on etsy. our little boy has a very fashion savvy daddy and he will need cute little shirts like this if he's going to compete with daddy's wardrobe.

baby boy and gastroschisis

We're having a boy, which is very exciting. We think we have a name picked out, but there are a lot of names I like, so we might change it.

So, we had our ultrasound appointment on Monday to check out our baby and see why my AFP results were high. Our baby has an abdominal wall defect called gastroschisis. His bowels are on the outside of his abdomen. There's a hole on the right side of his umbilical cord and his bowels are sticking out of that hole. It's a very fixable issue, so that's good, but it's fixable as long as nothing else goes wrong. Kaiser is referring us to UCSF's Medical Center for further scanning (as if the hour and a half ultrasound I had on Monday wasn't thorough enough), and we'll talk to them more about the defect. As long as nothing else is wrong they don't recommend terminating the pregnancy because of this defect, since it is fixable. After our first appointment with them I'll be closely monitored by them for the rest of the pregnancy. I'll have ultrasounds with my team at UCSF once a month until I'm somewhere around 28 weeks, at which point I'll have them about every week until they decide they need to take the baby out (the amniotic fluid can sometimes thicken the bowels, and if that starts to happen they need the baby to come out so he won't have any more issues). For some reason gastroschisis babies are totally fine until about 37 weeks and then sometimes they die. So I won't be allowed to carry to term, I'll probably have the baby between 32-36 weeks. It's been an emotional few days, and it'll be an emotional few months until we get to take our little boy home. I'll have the baby at UCSF and he'll have his surgery the day he's born. Hopefully the hole is big enough to put the bowels back in and just repair the hole, but if it isn't then it will take more surgeries. Typically these babies are in the hospital for 2 weeks to 2-3 months, and I know there's a small chance that he'll never be coming home with us, and I just can't think about that. We get to take him home from the hospital when he is able to keep down milk (instead of being fed through an IV) and is gaining weight. It's emotional and stressful and sad and Scott & I are doing the best we can to figure all of this out. We just need to focus on having a baby that's as healthy as possible and focus on the fact that babies are remarkable resilient and our little guy will be just fine. Also, we need to function as normally as possible with all of this; plan a nursery, have a baby shower, pick out little boy toys and clothes, and plan as if this baby is coming home normally just like most other babies. I need to focus on that, and live like that.

Here are some links if you want to learn more about gastroschisis or the process that Scott & I will be going through:

http://fetus.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/gastroschisis/

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000992.htm