21 Weeks!

This little baby of ours is growing rapidly, as is my belly! Check me out:



The crazy thing is, I still have a long way to go... approximately FOUR more months! I'm still feeling great, but I have to say that nine months is beginning to feel like an awfully long time to be pregnant! Hopefully I will continue to feel good and will enjoy the rest of my pregnancy as much as I've enjoyed it so far.

From BabyCenter:

How your baby's growing:

Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now.

And, by the way, I'm already positive that she is practicing martial arts in there, or maybe gymnastics!

20 Weeks and Growing

Banana Baby

We're 20 weeks along now - halfway through the pregnancy. About 20 more weeks till our baby girl is here! I can feel her moving around every day now. Jeremy hasn't been able to feel the movement with his hand on my belly yet, but I bet he will be able to before too long. She's getting pretty big now - BabyCenter says she's about the length of a banana!

I've been feeling pretty normal lately. Sometimes I forget for a moment that I'm pregnant, until I feel her move or my back and hip start aching as a reminder. Or, of course, until I look down and see my round belly :-). I noticed last night that my belly button is starting to change already and is looking a little bit stretched!

From BabyCenter:

How your baby's growing:

Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now. He's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel — the length of a banana. (For the first 20 weeks, when a baby's legs are curled up against his torso and hard to measure, measurements are taken from the top of his head to his bottom — the "crown to rump" measurement. After 20 weeks, he's measured from head to toe.)

It's a....

GIRL! It's a GIRL! It's a GIRL! My intuition was right!

The ultrasound tech and the doctor pointed out her brain, spine, rib cage, heart & the four chambers, stomach, kidneys, bladder, eye sockets, nose, mouth, arms, legs, feet, hands, and lastly her girl parts. And everything looks as healthy as can be! We saw one picture of her face from the front, and I thought she looked like Jeremy! It looks like she has his lips and chin.

She moved around some while we were peeking into her private world in the womb. She had her little legs crossed at the ankles at first (already a lady, according to Devon!). She hiccuped. She put her feet over her head. She put her foot in her mouth (must have gotten that from Jeremy). Then she started lounging like Jeremy does - with one leg crossed at the ankle over the other knee. You can see this in her picture below! She is going to be such a fun little girl; we can't wait till she's in our arms!!

19 Weeks

According to www.babycenter.com...

Your baby's sensory development is exploding! Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you.

Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

And I absolutely love this picture from www.i-am-pregnant.com:



At this point, the baby is basically a tiny version of what we'll see in November!

The Results Are In...

We got the results of the quad screen test today: negative for everything (including Down syndrome, other chromosomal birth defects and neural tube defects)! Of course it's just a "screening" test, which means that they can't exactly rule anything out, but negative results are a very good sign! Thanks for your healthy baby prayers, and please keep them coming!!

Doctor's Visit

My doctor's visit went well today. I was weighed (I'm up 6 lbs - I was right!), we listened to the baby's heartbeat, she felt my uterus (it's up to my belly button now!), and I got to ask all my pressing questions about my recent aches and pains. She said the hip pain is normal, and that some women get it so bad that they have to go to physical therapy. I certainly hope mine doesn't get that bad.

When she listened to the heart beat, she made her gender prediction... for a girl! She said she was just going by the old wives' tale that a baby girl's heart rate is consistently higher than 140. Our baby's is always in the 150s or 160s. We will find out for sure next Thursday!

18 Week Photo

I'm continuing to grow... and I've now grown right out of my regular jeans; they don't even fit with the belly band anymore! Here I am in my new maternity jeans:



*Wolf whistle*

Quickening

I can feel the baby move! I started feeling it at 15 weeks, but juuuust barely. It felt sort of like gas bubbles, but different enough that I could distinguish the feeling. Today while sitting at my desk at work I had that same feeling, but stronger. The baby was playing the drums on my belly! Then I put my hand on my stomach where all the motion was, and I swear I felt a little thump against my hand. I very well may have imagined that part, but I'll keep trying to feel. I would love for Jeremy to be able to feel it too!

"To sleep, perchance to dream"

Those words ring differently to me than ol' Hamlet intended them. Oh, how I wish for sleep - blissful, free of pain, uninterrupted sleep!

My first issue:
Since the very beginning of my pregnancy, I've been getting up during the night to relieve my bladder. I used to fight it, thinking I could go back to sleep and deal with it in the morning. But no, a pregnant lady's bladder is persistent and it is nearly always full. In the beginning it's due to the increased amount of fluid in our bodies (our blood volume increases 40% during pregnancy!), and our kidneys working more efficiently to expel waste from the body. Some say the frequency of potty breaks decreases in the second trimester, but I have yet to experience that. I've had to cut off my fluid intake at 8pm to minimize the frequency of nature's call while I sleep.

My second issue:
Pregnant ladies don't have many options when it comes to sleeping positions. I used to sleep on my stomach, which of course I can't do anymore. I started to wean myself off of it a few weeks ago by forcing myself to sleep on my side. I kept waking up to find myself on my back, which we're also not supposed to do, since the weight of the uterus can rest on the aorta and inferior vena cava, and you don't wanna mess with those. I bought a body pillow, which takes up a tremendous amount of the bed (sorry, Jerm!), but does make sleeping on my side more comfortable. That is, until my ear begins to ache because I've been lying on it too long.

My third (and worst) issue:
My left hip has been hurting pretty intensely since last weekend. This happened in my second month too, but went away with some yoga stretches. Unfortunately stretching isn't bringing me any comfort this time, so I may just have to wait it out. It hurts when I sit. It hurts when I lie down. It hurts when I breathe deeply or hiccup. The only relief I get is from standing up, and I don't think I can sleep standing up. I've done a little research and found that the pain may be due to the hormone relaxin, which relaxes the joints to prepare the body for childbirth - this can cause inflammation and pain. Almost everything I've read says this usually happens in late pregnancy (we're talkin' at 36 weeks or so), so I don't know if it could be affecting me yet. I plan to ask my doctor about it this week.

I hope to get some good nights' rests before the baby comes, since I know that once the little one is here, uninterrupted nights will be a distant memory!

Bell Pepper Baby

18 Weeks (from BabyCenter):

How your baby's growing:

Head to rump, your baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and he weighs almost 7 ounces. He's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that you'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. His blood vessels are visible through his thin skin, and his ears are now in their final position, although they're still standing out from his head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around his nerves, a process that will continue for a year after he's born. If you're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If you're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, but he may hide them from you during an ultrasound.

And a cool photo courtesy of www.i-am-pregnant.com:



ETA: "What to Expect When You're Expecting" says that the baby can now yawn and hiccup!

Maternity Clothes

I am getting dangerously* close to fitting into my maternity jeans! Devon was kind enough to lend me a huge heap of her maternity clothes, which were practically falling off of my hips at that time (about 2 months ago). I tried them on tonight and they were just barely too big! I think in another week or two, I will have grown out of my "belly band" and into my official maternity clothes. The funny thing is, I now have more pairs of maternity jeans than I have regular jeans!

My doctor should be happy to see my belly at next week's appointment. Last time I saw her, she questioned if I was eating enough and said she wanted to see me gain more weight. I had only gained two pounds at that time; I think now I have probably gained five or six. She wants me to gain 30 pounds in total, which quite honestly scares me to death! When Jeremy and I went to Jamaica, I carried a backpack as my luggage, and it weighed at most 25 pounds. It was exhausting carrying that extra 25 pounds around!! My legs felt numb just walking short distances while wearing the backpack. I can't imagine having that weight sitting mostly on my front-side.

* The word "dangerously" was, of course, used only for dramatic purposes ;-)