And Life Continues.

Itch: Gone.

Bethany: Happy.

Richie: Hard at work, as usual. Most recently, he finished a collaborative project with students and professors who visited the centrifuge from Japan! They knew no English, and he knew no Japanese, so he pretty much played charades and pictionary with them for about a month as he tried to explain how to set up a centrifuge test. That project has just been completed; so now he is balancing research, classes, guest lecturing, preparing for the PhD qualification exams, working on immigration papers... need the list continue? It goes on. Endlessly. How he remains sane, and happy, and a perfect husband, is beyond me.

Baby: Kicking away. Sometimes Mommy gets nauseated from all the kicking. It is constant. The most recent reports from the doctor informed us that the head is down, the legs are still long, the tummy and cheeks are chubby, and everything looks good!

We will post more ultrasound pictures from this week, which are as cryptic as ever. They are for the tough among you who wish to risk kinked necks and who like to indulge your wild imaginations trying to picture hardly identifiable body parts.


Richie at the centrifuge with two students and a professor from Japan. Charades, anyone?


The whole centrifuge group--some from Japan, some from... well, not Japan. Richie's professor, a fellow Canadian and a wonderful guy, is in the back row on the right.


OK, stretch those necks... Tilt your head to the left, and you might be able to see the baby's face. Two eyes, nose, mouth, chubby little left cheek... If you can't see it, don't despair. Neither could we.


Why is your head up again? Keep it tilted! This is a headless shot. The big round blob is the fat little tummy. The bones that come together on the top are the baby's arms. We think the baby is praying: "Pleeeease, God, get me out of here! I'm feeling claustrophobic!"


This is our personal favorite, and it requires no tilt of the head: The baby giving the world and everyone who loves him/her a good ole "thumbs up," as if to say, "Hey guys, I'm doing great in here... What was all the panic?" See those cute little fingers curled into a fist? And the thumb sticking up? Awwwww.