12 Weeks 4 days

We had a Dr.'s appointment this Wednesday, and everything is going well, the baby's heartbeat is 168 bpm and it finally looked like an actual baby this time! It was crazy to see it bouncing around in my belly when I couldn't feel a thing. We saw its little arm wave and its hand showed its little teeny fingers. It was the cutest thing we've ever seen! My eye teared up a little (due to increased hormones) :) Both of us used "him" to describe the babe. We don't know what it is, but it was weird we both said "he". We'd be happy with either a boy or girl, but I know Justin would love a little "surfing buddy".

Friday.... March 30th: We had a Nuchal Translucency test done, which measures the fluid behind the babies neck to see the risk of down syndrome. They also tested the crown rump length to determine the age of the baby. Baby Ackerman was just bouncing around like crazy and kicking all over the place, so it was really hard to measure. But she said s(he) was about 12 weeks 4 days. This appointment was really cool because we were able to see our baby on a big monitor and she pointed out the spine, we saw both sides of the formed brain chambers and the legs, arms, hands and feet. Justin said the baby has a pointy nose like me, and big hands and feet like his daddy. Oops, did I say "his", well its kinda habit now because the Tech said she can't be 100% positive because its so early, but we think we saw some boy "parts". Sometimes this is confused with the extension of the tailbone or the umbilical cord, but it did look like a penis. So, until we get confirmation again in a couple weeks, we aren't positive on the gender.

Here are some pics of a baby we're already in love with:

Look at its long little legs:

You can see a clenched hand, and its little foot in the top left corner:

This is my favorite pic, where he/she just has its feet up, Just Chillin' :