Merry Christmas!

We finally managed to scan in Speck's latest ultrasounds yesterday. As you can see, she's gotten so big that she doesn't really fit in a single "frame" of sonogram anymore. She's about 2 pounds big; I don't remember the length guesstimate, but her cranium measures in at about 7 centimeters in diameter. Our ultrasound specialist managed to get a few lovely 3-D images of her; our favorite is the one where she seems to be sucking on her thumb.

We have a 2 day holiday for Christmas (the 26th is a German holiday - Second Christmas, who wouldn't love that?! - and was given to us as a Federal holiday this year, too) plus a head-start today, since the Embassy will officially close at noon. We are planning a quiet Christmas at home, the last one of these we'll have as a couple. (Mind you, Pauline probably has as many presents under the tree as either of us...) In addition to lounging in our PJs, watching movies, eating fondue and other yummy treats, and decorating our gingerbread house, we'll need to do a bit of cleaning, because our friends Connie and Jim are coming on the 29th! Just for a few days as they pass through Europe, but we're super excited to see them. I can hardly believe it's already been a year since their wedding!

And, of course, we'll continue to enjoy watching my brother Jim's run on "Jeopardy!" It's very neat to have him right there in our living room this week.

We wish you all a very healthy and happy holiday season, and a peaceful and joyous 2009. It's going to be a very exciting year!

Pauline at 27 Weeks

The Growing Baby - Week 23

Week 27!

For those of you keeping score at home, we just crossed the threshold into Week 27 - which means we're more or less headed into the final trimester. Yippee!!!!! Pauline is due on March 26 - a day which seems a million miles away.

We had a check-up this morning. Pauline slept through it, but was kind enough to turn as needed so Dr. Buescher could measure her. She remains right in the middle of the growth chart, happily adding centimeters every week. Our next appointment should be fun - I'll be doing the glucose challenge test to check for gestational diabetes. This means I have to fast before my appointment - this should be a shock for both Speck and me, since we're both firm believers in breakfast - and then go in and have my blood sugar tested before drinking a sugar solution. They'll then draw blood at 1 hour and 2 hours after I drink the glop, to see how I'm processing the sugar. (Sorry for boring those of you who've been through this before!) I'd love to see an ultrasound from about half an hour after I drink the glop - it would be fun to watch the baby's first real sugar-high.

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In other news, we took a whirlwind trip last weekend to visit Caroline, Antoine, and Caroline's parents in France. Since we had days left on our Eurail passes, and I can't fly right now, we took the train. We left Berlin last Thursday after work, took a high-speed train to Karlsruhe, changed there for a night train to Paris, changed stations in Paris to get the TGV (French high-speed train) to Dijon, and then a local train to Beaune, right in the heart of Burgundy. We got in around 11 AM on Friday to Beaune - a very long trip! But since the sleeper car we were supposed to have to Paris was out of order, we hadn't gotten much sleep on the trip. So Beaune was less about sightseeing and more about finding places out of the cold to sit and warm up. We did make it to the Hospices; we also had a lovely lunch with incredible wines by the glass (where else in the world could you find a Chassagne-Montrachet by the glass?) Pauline and Tim both experienced their first-ever escargot as I indulged this particular craving. Caroline and her dad - and Antoine - came to pick us up, and we had a foggy overland trip from there to Autun, to Caro's parents' house. It was so wonderful to see her parents again! We spent Saturday alternating between exploring the sites in Autun and lapsing into food comas from Caro's mom Marie's wonderful cooking. (This included a second helping of escargots, which Pauline seems to really like; goose, the first time Tim or I had ever had it; a variety of delicious French cheese; baguettes, of course!; and seared Charolais beef that was unbelievably fresh.) We had to leave Sunday morning, and Caro's dad Roland was kind enough to take us out to the train station in Dijon. It was too short, and too much time on the trains!, but it was great to see the Vuillemins, catch up on the family news, and - as always - see Caroline and Antoine again. One of the best things about this tour in Europe has been that we've gotten to see Caro and Antoine so much. Tim took some great pictures, so we can prove to Pauline once she's old enough to recognize it that we did travel with her - before she was born, anyway! Sheesh, she's been to Paris - twice, technically; Rome; here and there in Germany; and to Burgundy.

By popular demand...

Because some of you have asked us for it, the most recent photo of Ruth Anne's growing belly. This is from today, the last day of Week 25:

Joyous Thanksmas!

One of the many, many things that Tim and I share is a love of Thanksgiving dinner. (Pumpkin pie is his favorite birthday treat.) We also love to entertain, especially at the holidays. We've learned, though, that planning a big Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving isn't necessarily the best way to go.

Last year we skipped Thanksgiving entirely - we'd planned a trip to southwest Germany, but had to cancel because I got the flu - but celebrated a very memorable "Thanksmas" in Ohio on our eastbound return trip from Connie's wedding in Los Angeles. I'm not sure if it was Jim, Amy, or Becca that came up with the name for the occasion, but it sure fit.

So this year, we decided to host a Thanksmas dinner. (The table was decorated for Thanksgiving, the rest of the house for Christmas, and Tim put out our plush turkey with a Santa hat on just for Thanksmas.) Although many of the friends we'd invited had to cancel, we had a lovely evening - and a deeeeeelicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish... our table was literally overflowing with yummy goodness, even before we brought out the pies! We tried some new recipes and were thrilled with the results - good notes for my holiday journal. (Must track down the gravy recipe I used...) We're now feasting on leftovers, parceling some out to friends who couldn't join us, freezing what we can to enjoy again over Christmas weekend, and generally trying to empty the fridge before we leave for a long weekend in France.

It seems that Pauline is inheriting this Thanksgiving enjoyment from us. She was quite active as I bustled around the kitchen, but did let me rest when it was time for Tim to cook and me to put my feet up. She also seemed to prefer the small glass of wine I had with dinner to the sparkling grape juice I had as an aperitif. (Jim, this is definitely your niece. Whatever else she's done to my taste buds, we both enjoyed the '98 Meursault tremendously...)

This was also a good warm-up for our weekend trip to visit Antoine, Caroline, and her parents in Burgundy. I can't wait to see the Vuillemins, but I know I'm going to need to find excuses to walk or romp with Antoine to burn off the calories from Caro's mother's incredible cooking. And the yummy French bread... and cheese... yay!

Migraines

Tim's new computer has arrived (yay!) - but since it came with Windows Vista, his scanner doesn't work with it. (Boo.) If I can, I'll hook the scanner up to my machine tonight so I can get Pauline's latest sonograms up online tomorrow. Otherwise this may be a weekend project...

But it will depend on the state of my head. I suffer from migraines. I didn't, really, until we came to Berlin - I had the occasional one, but not very many and not very often. But here it's become a full-blown problem. The great thing is that there have been some wonderful new medications that have come out in the last 5-10 years, and these work miracles for me. I can work, I can function, I can see, I can more or less think straight, when the meds are working - and they're effective for me almost every time.

Except, of course, that they're completely off-limits during pregnancy. Now, like many women with migraines, I've noticed that my attacks are less frequent and less severe since I became pregnant. (Incentive for a large family!) But the bad news is that when I do get one, there's nothing at all to be done about it. I can take 2 Tylenol, drink a small amount of something with caffeine, and hope. Sometimes it works. Tuesday it didn't, so I spent the day at home nursing my head in a dark room. Yesterday was better; today has been another headache day, though not nearly as severe.

I am hopeful that when we leave Berlin, I'll get to leave my migraines behind. Enough is enough of this!

Birthdays, Bodysuits, Bibs, and Baby Registries

Today is Tim's birthday! This tends to be a low-key annual event, as evidenced this year by the fact that I'm at work. But there might just need to be a pumpkin pie tonight or tomorrow - one of his favorite desserts. I just wish there were more I could do to tell my wonderful husband just how terrific he is.

Now that we know that Speck is a girl, we've started to work on our baby registries. So far, we're registered at Target.com and BabiesRUs.com - both registries can be found under either of our names. These are works in progress, and reflect a few oddities about our situation:

- We won't even attempt to decorate Pauline's room here in Berlin, since we'll be moving about 3 months after she's born. Every baby website I've visited suggests that this makes us unfit parents right out of the gate, but we can't see how it makes sense to invest the time, money, and effort into setting up a nursery when she'll still be tiny when we leave. Besides, it lets us save our nesting energies for things like organizing our household effects for packout. And we don't really think our 3-month-old daughter will feel unloved just because her bassinet is in a room without pastel paint on the walls.

- We have no idea where we'll be living in the Washington area, so major items like rocking chairs, crib, etc. will have to wait until we know how large her room will be, and how much storage space we'll have in our house/apartment. Same thing for safety gates and other equipment - until we know what the layout of the house is, we can't buy these things. Happily, we get some wiggle room from the fact that by the time we're moved in and settled, Pauline will only be 4 or 5 months old, and not all that mobile (yet!)

- We are also trying to keep our baby gear, including larger toys, furniture that's nice but not strictly necessary (e.g. changing tables), etc. to a minimum, because we'll only be in Washington for a few years before we have to pack up and move all over again. And there are limits on how much stuff the State Department is willing to ship around the world for us.

- We're new at this! We have absolutely no idea how many onesies, socks, outfits, sleepers, receiving blankets, etc. we'll really need. So we haven't registered for much clothing or toys. We put a few things up just to give examples; otherwise we trust to the taste and experience of those who might be shopping, and hope to get some things to cover us for various sizes/ages. (We also have no idea how many diapers we'll need, but feel safe in assuming the answer to that question is "LOTS!")

- Because some online merchants (Target can be bad this way) don't like to ship to APO addresses, we've put our "diplomatic pouch" address on some of the websites. Our APO address is the best one, but if you can't ship something there, you can also send to the Dulles, VA address which you should find online. I've found that for clothes and small things, it doesn't matter much one way or the other, but for larger items, you may need to use the Dulles, VA address.

And most important of all: We'd be delighted to help the environment and your closet/attic/storage space by using hand-me-down items! We love the idea of getting good use out of things like clothes, which is hard for babies to do on their own.

Exciting news!!!!

Our ultrasound appointment on Thursday went perfectly. The specialist was able to do all the measurements he needed to do - Speck's growing well, and is on average in the 65-70th percentile for growth based on gestational age. There are a few exceptions, most notably the femur bones, which seem to be more like 90th percentile. (Long legs? Can this really be my baby?) But best of all, we were able to get a definite call on the baby's gender:

It's a girl!!!!!!!!

Speck, aka Pauline Elizabeth, was very active during her ultrasound, moving her arms around and at one point sucking on her big toe. (Remember when you were flexible enough to do that?) We got some wonderful sonograms, which we'll post as soon as we can - we've been having some computer problems at home. But the important thing is that she's healthy and growing well. The specialist did an echocardiogram, which turned up absolutely clear. Liver, kidneys, lungs - all are developing normally, as are the physical structures of her brain. In short, as far as medical science can tell us, we're expecting a very healthy baby.

We decided on Pauline Elizabeth for her name. Pauline is for my mother's godmother, Pauline Hansen, who was like a grandmother to me and who was a very special person in my life. Elizabeth is for Tim's mom. We can't think of two women we would want to honor more, or two better namesakes for our little one.

Our next regular appointment will be Thursday - Thanksgiving. (It's not a holiday in Germany, so it's a great time to take care of some errands, including this one.) We have so very much to be thankful for this year.

Fall in Berlin

One thing we've really enjoyed here in Germany - and will also enjoy about being back in Washington - is that we have a true autumn here, unlike in Tel Aviv. It's my favorite season - I love the colors, the smells, the apple cider...

...but I've never been as fond of the raking! Tim, Minka, Speck, and I tackled our back yard a few weekends ago; here are some pictures.

Just look at the belly! By the way, Speck slept through all this physical activity - I guess the motion of my raking was soothing.

Minka also pitched in, chewing up all the sticks we uncovered in the leaves to make them easier to rake. She may be aging (gracefully) - I can't believe how white her face is becoming - but she's never gotten over the retriever puppy chewing thing. We also uncovered tennis balls and other dog toys in the leaves. She had a ball playing with us in the yard (and diving into leaf piles.)

Frost on the Pumpkin

Post-election, we're starting to get into the fall holidays. We spent some time raking leaves in our backyard the weekend before last, only to have our hard work undone by a windstorm the next day that dropped more leaves on the yeard than we had raked in the first place. (Sigh.) This past weekend, we were invited to our friends David and Christy's for an early Thanksgiving dinner, so Speck and I got up early on Sunday to make apple pies. Tim helped me peel and cut up several pounds of apples for 3 pies - one to bake for dinner, and 2 to freeze for future needs. (The dough for some pumpkin pies is also in the freezer now, ready to be rolled out.) The new recipe I tried for the apple filling is tasty, but really juicy - the bottom crust turns to mush. But no one seemed to mind.

We're planning a trip down to the Army base this weekend. We have been thinking about getting a new TV, and have decided to exercise our consumer confidence and go for it. The flatscreen should be lighter and slimmer than our current TV, and already set up for digital and HDTV; by buying it on base, it'll also be multi-system and dual-voltage. So: easier to ship than our current model, and better to watch. While we're down there, in addition to the obligatory Taco Bell fix, we'll do some grocery shopping (the appeal of this is hard to understand unless you've lived overseas. Whole aisles of cheddar cheese and breakfast sausage! Ingredients you can't buy here! And things like cereal which you can get here, but on base it's half as much.) We'll also stock up on things at the exchange - this is kind of like a Target. Minka will have to stay home just so we can get everything into the car. Lucky for us, the Ohio State-_ichigan game (I can't write the name until it's over) is on late here, so we should be back in time.

But before that, we have 2 big dates this week. Tonight Tim and I are going to the hospital for their welcome tour/information session for expecting parents. (I'm practicing my vocabulary for childbirth terms - somehow, "labor" and "C-section" aren't in the standard German you learn in school.) And Thursday is our long-awaited 2nd super-duper ultrasound, where we're hoping to FINALLY learn Speck's gender.

We had a neat event last night: The American composer we worked with to do two projects to teach English to minority kids in inner-city Berlin through theater and music hosted a thank-you show for the Ambassador and his wife, who were truly the driving force behind those projects. These are kids from schools that had some of the highest gang and violence rates in the country, who are told every day by German society that they'll never amount to anything. Well, the violence has gone down, and even the kids who didn't take part in the musical have seen for themselves that if you're willing to work hard and try to accomplish something, there are people and organizations out there that will help you. The Embassy began it, but the German government is now on board too. Anyway, there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears from me and my German staff that went into these projects; it was wonderful to hear the kids sing again, and listen to the high school kids tell the story - in excellent English, which they couldn't have done when we began this work - of how the projects came to be. (Their story even quoted a long excerpt from the letter I wrote to the school director when we began. Neat to be recognized!) Speck seemed to enjoy the music, too - s/he definitely responds to the sounds of singing.

The Latest Picture of Speck - week 21

Post-Election Update

We've been so busy since the last update, it's hard to know where to begin. The dominating thing, of course, has been the series of events that we held for the Election - a school program, 2 big parties throughout Election Night, and a post-Election breakfast. I managed to sneak home for a few hours on Election Night, to get a quick nap and watch at least some of the returns with Tim, before dashing back downtown for the breakfast. All in all, we hosted more than 3700 people at Embassy-sponsored Election events on November 4 and 5, with excellent national media coverage of our programs and a huge response from our contacts.

I find it hard to put into words yet the emotions I've been feeling since the election results came in. As usual, Tim's done a much better job of summing it up: the "what are you doing now?" line on his Facebook profile now reads "Timothy Klitz will be able to raise his baby in a better world now." (I think much of the reputation I'm developing for effective public speaking is owed to the fact that I get to refine my ideas and arguments with Tim.) We're much more excited about moving back to Washington next year - it will be an interesting time to be there.

Speck seemed to enjoy all the madness, though. I've been able to feel him/her move for a while now, but it's getting much more noticeable in the past 2 weeks. I've learned that Speck loves it when I walk, gets super-excited when I run, and does not appreciate it when I forget to sit like a pregnant woman and instead curl up on the couch, cramping his/her world in the process. This will be a moot point in a few more weeks; I'm getting bigger by the week (by the hour?) We've already had a few laughs at the inherent comedy of pregnancy: watching me get up off the couch or out of the car is pretty funny.

We had our regular check-up today, at the start of Week 21, and both Speck and I are doing fine. We got some neat ultrasound images, which I hope are clear enough to scan; the printer on our doctor's ultrasound machine is a bit hit-or-miss. But as always, we had a great time watching the baby moving around. Today s/he was exploring his/her hands with his/her mouth, or vice versa. Who knows what s/he will be up to on our next ultrasound, which will be in 2 weeks??

Ciao, Roma!

OK, no new sonograms for a while - we have a fuzzy one from last week, but it's hard to make anything out on it! - so here's a first look at Speck from the outside. We haven't been doing a real series of belly shots, but here's one from our trip to Rome. (Mostly I think it's a nice picture of Tim and me at the Colosseum.)

Such a great trip! We had a fantastic time.

Week 18 Check-up

It's been a really busy past few weeks for us. Tim's dad Chuck and aunt Rosie came for a nice long visit. Although we had some down time in Berlin, we were pretty busy - Tim took them out west to the towns near Münster where the Klitzes come from originally; we spent a long weekend in central Germany visiting the cultural heartland - Wittenberg, Weimar, and Eisenach; and we all flew down for a wonderful 4-night trip to Rome. (Pictures coming this weekend, promise!) In the meantime, Tim really outdid himself with the cooking on our nights in Berlin.

Rome was incredible, better than I remembered it from my one trip there 12 years ago. We had perfect sunny weather, a nice break from Berlin, and did so much! We also ate ourselves silly every night at a wonderful neighborhood joint that our B&B landlady recommended. (I wasn't sure whether to be pleased or a bit worried when I saw an American couple wander in one evening with a page marked in their Rick Steves' Rome guide.) I could eat fresh pasta and salad every night and be a very happy woman. On the other hand, Speck was craving bruschetta and bread much more than gelato. Is this really my kid?

Speck really enjoyed the trip. (I have visions of the baby coming out, turning to me, and saying "Ciao, Mama!" But nah, s/he won't learn Italian for at least a few months...) I've started feeling very occasional, very light movement. It's stronger when I'm very excited, or when I've just eaten after fasting for a while. Speck seems to also enjoy Italian food, and long walks through Rome. S/he also earned me a place to sit in the Sistine Chapel, which is usually almost impossible to do; the Italian guards took one look at my belly and shooed some college kids off a bench so I could rest my feet. After a long morning waiting to get into the Vatican museum and a few hours walking through it, I appreciated the thought. In general, though, the Italian tendency to casually jostle passersby worried me a bit. One older lady in front of me at the Pantheon looked over her shoulder before backing up, started to back into me (how dare I not get out of her way?), then did a double take as she saw my hands holding my belly defensively. She almost tripped as she corrected herself to avoid knocking me over. I'm not sure whether to be grateful that she decided not to crash into my unborn child, or annoyed that if I weren't visibly pregnant, she would clearly have run me over.

We had our monthly check-up today, which is day 1 of our 18th week of pregnancy. Speck is measuring perfectly, with a lovely heartbeat, and was head-down for the first time since we've started peeking in on him/her. We'll be doing check-ups every 3 weeks for a while, so we'll be back at the doctor's office soon, but in the meantime we have to go in for our next detailed ultrasound in 2 weeks. We'll go back to the specialist who did our NT screening a few weeks ago, and are very hopeful that we'll get to learn Speck's gender. In the meantime, we're looking forward to a quiet weekend at home, enjoying fall weather with a nice fire and some college football...

Newest addition to the family!

Speck's family grew just a bit earlier than expected this past Monday, as Uncle Tom and Aunt Nicole welcomed their baby girl Rosie at 12:20 PM Central time. She was 3 weeks early, and weighed in at 6 lbs. 3 oz, 20 1/4 inches long. We won't get to meet her until next summer, but can't wait! Plus it'll be awfully fun for Speck to meet his/her newest cousin.

Speaking of cousins, this was an exciting weekend in Cleveland, too, as cousin Rebecca (Jim and Amy's older daughter) was elected Homecoming Queen. We're so proud of Becca!

Meanwhile, Tim's having a great time taking Chuck and Rosie around. Since tomorrow's a German holiday, I'll get to join them for a long weekend trip to central Germany. I hope Speck doesn't mind a nice long car ride or two...

The Latest Pictures of the Best Baby in the Universe

Speck at 14 weeks

NT screening, latest check-up, and visitors!

On Monday, Tim and I went in for our scheduled NT screening. Nuchal translucency screening is an advanced ultrasound to look at the back of the neck - there are measurements that a specialist can do to detect signs of Downs or other chromosomal anomalies. If something looks fishy, they order an amniocentesis to check; if not, you can be pretty confident that the baby won't have to contend with Downs. It also checks for spina bifida and some other developmental problems.

The first thing to report is that Speck is just fine. Everything looks great, according to the specialist. But mostly, Tim and I had way too much fun during the exam! The ultrasound equipment being used is so sensitive, we could see all 4 chambers of Speck's heart beating away! (He turned on the sound for us so we could hear it as well... that was pretty amazing.) We could also see both hemispheres of Speck's brain through his/her still-forming skull. The specialist said it's still a little early to tell the baby's gender, though we'd been kind of hopeful. But we have a healthy, and very active, Speck, who is almost precisely on average for size given his/her gestational age.

Wednesday I took the day off so we could go to the airport and pick up Tim's dad Chuck and his aunt Rosie. Chuck was in Germany once before, with Tim and Tom a few years back; it's Rosie's first trip here. It's great to have them! We spent Wednesday just chilling at the house, but we have sightseeing planned for the rest of this week.

Today (Thursday), Tim and I had our monthly check-up appointment with our obstetrician. My blood pressure is good, as is my weight gain (just a pound this month, which is really good; we're trying to keep my total weight gain for the pregnancy on the low side, since I weighed more than my fair share going into the pregnancy.) Just to check for himself, Dr. Büscher also did an ultrasound; all we could really see was Speck's back, though it was cool to see all the tiny vertebra all lined up. We'll have to speak with this child about not turning his/her back on us, though...

At Week 15, I am now definitely in maternity clothes (though with lots of room to grow), and very happy to have a third of the pregnancy behind us! I've been feeling a bit more energetic and a bit less morning sickness-y; here's hoping that trend continues...

The political education of Speck

Like many people in the US, and all around the world for that matter, Tim and I are following the US presidential elections very closely. Tim has more time to stay current with the news (this is especially impressive if you know how informed he kept himself while he was working), and we discuss the latest developments eagerly. Given the extreme interest in this topic in Germany, I've been working with my staff to organize a series of election events - we bring American experts together with German audiences to explain the process, discuss key issues, etc. This will continue even beyond November 4, as we then get to analyze the likely impact on US-German relations of the new administration. And most importantly, seeing how frustrated Germans are with Bush and how eagerly they're hoping for an Obama victory, we'll do a series in January/February on "transition" - i.e., whether it's Obama or McCain, don't expect changes overnight.

Last week Tim and I went to a fantastic discussion organized jointly by the Embassy and the German Marshall Fund. We listened to a German journalist based in Washington, an American foreign policy expert, and an American economist talk about the elections. It's so interesting to hear well-informed people discuss both the issues and the other factors involved in the election. We then had dinner with a couple who live in our neighborhood on Saturday - of course, the conversation turned to politics. And just today, I attended a conference to listen to a couple of fabulous speakers (the government affairs directors for the NAACP and the American Jewish Committee) talk about racial/ethnic minority communities and the election. Again, fascinating stuff.

With all of this, I seriously wonder if it could wind up impacting Speck. We've read a few things about people having an affinity for particular pieces of music or other sounds they were exposed to in utero. Could we be developing a political pundit by bringing Speck along to all these discussions? Or maybe just a well-informed citizen who's interested in politics? I wonder...

The First Pictures of Speck

Speck's First Blog! (Week 13)

Hi everyone, and thanks for stopping by my new blog! Mommy and Daddy said they'd help me with it, at least until I can reach the keyboard and am old enough to type. So I'll turn it over to them from here. Love, Speck.

For those who haven't heard yet, Tim and I learned this summer that we're expecting our first child in March. After more than 6 months of trying to conceive, we're both ecstatic about the news and cannot wait to welcome the baby. We started referring to the baby as "Speck" right away, because we won't know his/her gender for several more weeks (and at first, s/he was really only as big as a little speck.)

We're almost done with the first trimester and according to our doctor, everything's going very well. I've had a fair amount of "morning" sickness and some other side effects, but as the doctor assures me, the worse I feel, the better Speck's doing.

We're very excited to have this baby in Germany, which is where Tim's ancestors are from; Speck will be the first Klitz in Tim's direct line of ancestors to be born in Germany in over 150 years. In the meanwhile, we're happy to have access to German medical care, which is outstanding. The best part is that German obstetricians use ultrasound very routinely, much more than in the States. So we caught our first glimpse of Speck as early as Week 6, on our first doctor's visit on July 28. There wasn't much to see yet, just a little Speck about the size of a grain of rice, with a little blinking dot where his/her heart is. Our last two trips to the doctor have shown us an actual baby-shaped Speck, moving very actively and growing just as s/he should. We have copies of those sonograms, which Tim has scanned.

Tim and I will both be updating this blog from time to time. Please stop back and join us as we watch our family grow!