23 Weeks

Baby's now the size of a papaya!Baby's little face is fully formed...minus the baby fat, of course. The next task at hand for baby: sprouting two teeny-tiny nipples! Swollen from head to toe? Increased blood flow, by now an old friend, is to blame. Consider a trip to the shoe store because loosening ligaments will cause your feet to expand even more in the weeks to come. Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango), you may be able to see her squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in her lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing her for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze her when she hears them outside the womb.

We went to Prenatal Associates today for our sonogram of the baby's heart and to find out what it is. Our nurse was Sandy and we told Sandy that we didn't know what the baby was and we were dying to find out so when she saw something to let us know. Well this visit was a different story than the last time we came. Baby Higgins had its legs WIDE OPEN for all to see. Lots of movement and with in minutes, Sandy said that Baby Higgins was indeed a GIRL. 153 heart beats per minute, 1 pound 8 ounces, and is in the 80 percentile in length of her legs.

We were thrilled, I had tears in my eyes and Mike had the biggest grin on his face. Then as she took the rest of the measurements, 1001 of what it meant to be having a girl flashed through our heads. We were in shock. At our patch meeting the day before, 11 out of 16 managers guessed BOY. However, my area manager Tony, good friend and colleague Ryan from Atlanta both said GIRL. Brooke guessed Boy. My Aunt Judy (Dad's sister) had told him from the get go she had girl vision.
Here we are with a baby girl swimming inside. All measurements of heart look great and they scheduled us for one more visit in 2 months just to check the baby's heart before delivery. Yeah! We get to see her again!