The last month

Well, the expected due date of Baby Sethupathy is now less than three weeks away and the anticipation is building! Thankfully, both the baby and Rebecca have progressed really well and continue to be in good health. The baby is now "head down" and we hope he will choose to stay that way until the delivery. He is also more active than we ever imagined he would be. He finds the loveliest places to punch and kick (tender spots of internal organs, in between ribs, etc).

These past few months have been emotionally exciting, but physically taxing, for Rebecca. As you mothers know, the home stretch is often the hardest stretch. She is really quite uncomfortable and has had a lot of difficulty sleeping. But despite all of that, she feels that the pregnancy as a whole has been relatively smooth and for that we are thankful! We've finished all of our birth classes, breast-feeding classes, etc. We have also been really blessed by friends and family with showers of gifts to prepare for the baby. So now, we are just waiting :).

Below are some pics from our trip in June (the babymoon) to Williamsburg, VA and also a cute tummy pic of Rebecca and our friend Theresa Boon. Theresa and Jake are expecting their second child (a girl) only one month after our boy arrives, so this is just an all around exciting time!

Update + Hamlin Baby Shower

Sorry that there haven't been many updates since April. It's been a very busy and exciting time! Rebecca has now finished the school year at TCA. Her tenure there was really quite a blessing, and we are thankful. We also just celebrated our third anniversary this past Tuesday! We also plan to travel to Williamsburg, VA in a week or so -- we are looking forward to this time away (the 'baby moon', as they call it).

Our baby boy has been very active and healthy. He is kicking mommy quite a lot and the his movement is now easily visible! Almost 7 months into the pregnancy; the day is fast approaching. We are about half-way through the childbirth classes that The Birth Center offers, and we are enjoying those. Learning a lot about the birth process and how we can prepare better. We are definitely happy about the holistic approach at The Birth Center; they do a good job with encouraging a natural birth.

We have started talking to and praying with our boy, so that he will recognize our tones and intonations when he finally arrives. Somehow we hope to also teach him Tamil, so Daddy is trying to speak Tamil to him as well. Maybe we can throw Spanish, Hindi, French, and Japanese in there too....and while I'm at it...maybe I will start sharing my dissertation work with him too...I'm sure he'll enjoy that :).

Meghan and Jon threw us a shower two weekends ago in Hamlin, NY. It was a great time and people really showered us with wonderful gifts -- it made a significant dent in our baby registry! So our living room is now a bona fide baby pad, full with swing, toy bin, glider, activity gym, etc. These pictures from the shower were taken by a relative, Elsie Menz. Thanks to Elsie for sharing these pictures with us! Enjoy the pictures and look soon for more...

Pics from our last visit with "Aunt Meg and Uncle Jon"

Meghan and Jon visited over the Easter weekend as they were touring and performing in the area with Houghton's College Choir. We took the opportunity to take some pics of the two babies! Meg and Jon brought us our baby's first "boy outfit," and Praveen enjoyed using it for a decoration and hanging it from our lamp for a few days:)

Our baby has a cousin!

We are told that we now have the freedom to put this up on our blog: Rebecca's sister (Meghan) and her husband (Jon) are also pregnant! Sisters pregnant together!! Meghan is ~15 weeks along and doing well. We were not at all expecting this wonderful news, so we were really pleasantly surprised to find out! Meghan & Jon live in Houghton, NY -- so we don't get to see them very often. They came to visit us in Philly toward the end of February and broke the news then by taking us through a flipbook of pictures of their kittens with their first ultrasound picture randomly thrown in! Jon had the camera handy to document our surprised reactions...here they are :-).

We're excited that our boy will have a cousin the same age to play with! And with Jon being a blond, blue-eyed, curly-haired, 6'5" track star...and with Praveen being a brown-eyed, black-haired, 5'7" Indian-American...these two cousins may look nothing alike!! We'll post some more pictures of Rebecca and Meghan soon.

Our baby boy

First, the proof that he is indeed a boy! As you can see, he is not at all shy about this!

Now, for some more fun pics! It was tough to get some of these pics, he was having fun with somersaults and all sorts of other gymnastics! :-)

Side profile of the baby

Is he sucking his thumb? :-)

Tibia and Fibula

Another side profile

Top-down shot of the brain

Drum roll please...

Well, the people had spoken a resounding "girl". In fact, ~75% of those who participated said "girl" and only ~25% said "boy". And a few funny jokesters said we were having twins and quadruplets. So what did we find out?

It's a boy!!! The Bryn Mawr Hospital Radiology nurses performed a full ultrasound test, checking everything from head to toe. Our baby boy is well and healthy! He weighs close to 1 lb, is about 20 weeks along, and has very long arms and legs (maybe he will be tall, unlike his father!). He was very active today; Rebecca has been feeling him tumble around more often these days. Rebecca has been feeling better lately, and we are both so excited to start calling our baby "he" and not "it" :-).

We have plenty of ultrasound pictures that we will be putting up very soon. Come back soon for the pictures!!

Any guesses?

Rebecca is now in the 20th week! Although she's feeling better than she was during the first trimester, she's still waiting for this supposed second trimester burst of energy :-). One exciting piece of news is that for a couple of weeks now, she has been able to feel the baby move -- she says it feels like popcorn popping. Here are some recent pictures; the bump is more visible! Lot of people have been asking us whether we think the baby is a boy or a girl. Well, what do you think? Leave your vote as a comment on this blog, we'd love to hear what you guys think. If the baby cooperates, we will be finding out the gender on Friday (March 30th), so come back soon to find out!! Thanks so much for your continued prayers.