Ziggy at 24 weeks

The stills the doctor takes when he's doing sonars are rarely very interesting to laypeople like you and me, and I'm lucky to get one moderately interesting picture to post on here every time we go.

The 24 weeks scan was no different, in that respect; but what was different is that the best picture from this batch is also the first decent 3D (or 4D or whatever it is) picture we have of the baby.

Apparently the baby is huge - in the top 98th percentile of the growth graph at this point. It's making it a little trickier to make decisions about the birth since, as much as I want a natural birth, it might not be practical. It might also go off without a hitch, I just don't do well with so many unknowns. More on that decision making process in a future post, though. For now I'm simply grateful that the baby's healthy.

Ziggy's also very active now, and I am reminded of the little presence every now and again by a kick; and even Steve can feel them by now. It's very strange and very amazing.

Why "Ziggy"?

I quite like giving things nicknames. I also don't much like being just like everyone else. There are a few standard nicknames people tend to give their baby before the birth, like "bump", and that's lovely, but I can't help but be otherwise.

One way in which we're being a bit otherwise is not wanting to know the baby's gender before we meet hir. It makes it even harder to refer to the baby because you can't use "he" or "she"; "he/she" is stupid; "they" is clumsy; the gender neutral pronouns "hir" and "ze" confuse people; "it" is horrible. And none of the names we like are gender neutral.

Early in the pregnancy a term sprung up from somewhere in my weird brain, where it had been lurking since matric (high school senior year) biology. One of the very first stages of a baby, when the two parents' cells have just joined together, is called a zygote. And right then and there a nickname was born: Ziggy the Zygote.

Ziggy is long since not a zygote any more but we've become quite fond of our little Ziggy and even other people in our lives refer to hir as such by now.

So, no, it's not after Ziggy Stardust, and it's not the name we have decided to give the little one once Ziggy makes an appearance in November; but it's our way of referring to the baby and it makes us happy.

And now you know.

Ziggy at 21 weeks

At 21 weeks we had what is called the anatomy scan.

The doc checked for certain markers and indications of known illnesses and syndromes; I'm very grateful to say that all he found was a picture of health. Below I've uploaded the only good picture from the stills he captured.

Ziggy’s a big baby – in the top 70% for growth at that stage (even more at the moment but more about that later). It has made decisions about the birth a little harder to make but at least the baby has turned from the breech position ze was lying in at the time of this scan.

Around this time I also started feeling Ziggy kick, which was amazing.

Since 21 weeks was a while ago now, I promise there'll be more updates soon, including news from the latest (24 week) scan.