MiniMarr

Well, here we are at May 28, our second due date.  Miss Toot has still not arrived, and doesn’t appear to be making any moves to do so!  She is apparently quite content in my belly, which is just fine with us.  She continues to dance away, and makes us laugh all the time with how forceful her little kicks are!  She puts on a show every night as we fall asleep … it’s incredible and gives us such joy to watch and feel!  At this point, it looks like Toot might end up being a June baby after all … certainly not what we expected, but the more time we have with her, the better!

We’re waiting on pins and needles to meet her and will keep you posted on her arrival … thank you again for all your thoughts and prayers.  They are much appreciated!

Much to our delight, we had another ultrasound with Miss Toot on Thursday!  We had requested one at our last appointment because we wanted to check on her growth and mostly because we wanted to see her.  Our doctor’s office was very gracious in granting our request, which made us quite happy!  I am happy to report that Miss Toot continues to grow!  She’s up to 4 lbs 5 oz, which is still incredibly small (less than the 3rd percentile on growth charts) but we are very proud of her nonetheless!  Per usual, she was dancing all over the place and continues to keep her feet tucked up inside my ribs 🙂  It’s amazing to see how big she gotten … she even has some hair on the back of her head!!

There’s still no telling when she’ll arrive, but we continue to hope and pray that she does so on her terms.  If she waits too long, our doctors prefer to induce, but as we’d like to avoid that, we’re going to ask for your prayers that she comes on her terms!!  We’ve let her call all the shots thus far and would like to continue to do so … it’s so hard to believe that May is here already!  We’re getting very anxious to meet our precious girl and are hoping and praying for even just a few minutes with her.  We would like to thank you again for all for your continued love, prayers and support.  It means the world to us and we tell Toot all the time how many people are rooting for her.  She’s the most special little girl and has already touched so many lives … we feel very blessed to be her parents.  We’ll do our best to keep you all updated over the next couple of weeks and thank you again for thinking of us!

Thanks to an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, we were treated to a family portrait session with Miss Toot!  NILMDTS is an all volunteer group of professional photographers who take pictures for families and their babies when they are predicted to have a poor outcome at birth … It breaks my heart that this organization has to exist, because it means there are far too many people who lose their children, but at the same time, I am so thankful it does … without them, we wouldn’t have some amazing pictures to remember this pregnancy by.

A new friend who also lost her baby to Trisomy 18 first told me about NILMDTS and after browsing their website and list of photographers, I came across Sharon.  I think I broke all the rules and contacted her directly, but after seeing her website, I knew she was the right person for us.  Sharon suddenly lost her son Owen two weeks before he was due to be born … she’s since joined NILMDTS and keeps Owen’s legacy alive by helping people like us.

Sharon very graciously came to our house over a month ago to take some maternity pictures for us and was perfect.  She just got it, which made it so much easier for Pat and I … she took some amazing photos and somehow captured all of our emotions perfectly.  I was stunned when I saw the pictures … She also happens to be an animal lover, and snapped a few pictures of our “fur baby” which made us smile!

We’ll be calling Sharon when Toot arrives, and hope and pray she’s able to make it to the hospital!  She has her hands full with her daughter, but is going to do everything she can to be there for us.  It’s kindnesses like hers that make us realize how lucky we really are … I wish with all our hearts that we didn’t need NILMDTS, but because of them, we’ll always have these family pictures.  Thank you Sharon!

UPDATE: (06/03/09)

Now that Brienna has joined our family, we thought it appropriate to post some of the maternity photos that Sharon took for us:

 

 

 

 

Pat and I were treated to another glimpse of our precious Toot on Friday … we had an ultrasound scheduled and got to spend some time looking at little Miss Marr, but I have to say, 2D is just nowhere near as good as 4D!  We were definitely spoiled by our last ultrasound with Patty!

The ultrasound was basically just a growth check, but as always, it was fun to watch Toot dancing around.  She is still measuring behind in growth but weighed in at 2 lbs 10 oz!  That only puts her in the 5th percentile, which is very tiny, but we are quite proud of our little peanut!!

It turns out that Toot was measuring small all the way back to our first ultrasound, so our doctors are now estimating that her due date is probably closer to May 28 than May 18 … the due date in our hearts is and always will be May 18, but at least we won’t be shocked if June rolls around and Toot has yet to make an appearance!  We’re quite content to have her with us as long as she wants!

There’s been some inquires about how Toot got her nickname and quite honestly, I don’t even know!  Pat and I had been calling MiniMarr “Toot” for as long as we can remember (it seems so feminine now though, I think it’s a good thing she turned out to be a girl!) and somewhere along the way we started using it in front of everyone and it’s just stuck!  She’s probably always be Toot to us, poor thing 🙂  She will eventually have a proper name though, I promise!

Thank you again for all of your love and support; reading the comments about Toot’s ultrasound picture made us both so proud and we feel lucky to have such a great network of friends and family.  We’re in the homestretch now, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

Today, we were treated to an extended look at our gorgeous little girl!  My aunt Patty works for GE and was able to borrow a portable ultrasound machine equipped with 4D … she very graciously gave up her Sunday afternoon and came to our house to give us a private viewing of Toot.  It was awesome.  We now have so many great pictures of her and can’t believe how big she is getting!  Her little heart was ticking away at 136 beats per minute and we were able to record the sound of it – that makes me happy because it’s one of my favorite sounds and now we’ll always have it to remember.  The 4D images are amazing.  You can see every detail and I must say, we made a good looking baby 🙂  Toot has her dad’s perfect nose (lucky girl) and her mom’s chubby cheeks.  Her little arms look so muscular, which made us laugh!  As usual, she was dancing all over the place.  It was pretty cool because it was the first time that I was able to see what she’s actually doing when I feel her move!  Here she is about to scoot away from the camera:

It’s been about six weeks since we’ve seen Toot on ultrasound and I didn’t realize how much I missed her!! In a way, it reenergizes me and helps give me a little extra lift for the coming weeks.  Toot looks perfect to us and it’s hard to believe that we’ll meet her in 10 short weeks.  We want all the time in the world with our little girl, but hope and pray for even just a few minutes with her … she’s a fighter (she even had a great boxing pose!) and I am so proud of her for making it as far as she has.  Despite the uncertainty of all this, she’s shown us that hope truly does spring eternal.  We love our little girl so much and are beyond grateful to Patty for giving us the gift of spending as much time as we wanted just staring at her … we are so lucky to be surrounded by such great family and friends … thank you!!