17 weeks

I can hear my mother now, "I think an onion is smaller than an avocado!" Remember this fruit thing is not an exact science. But look at the difference in estimated weight from last week...from 3.5 ounces to 5.9 ounces in just a week! I tried to find some other baby-size comparisons, and here is what I came up with.

The Babycenter How Big Is Baby? slideshow says he or she is the size of a turnip.


And from the Tarzan's Ultimate Guide to Baby Sizes Week-By-Week for Soon to be Fathers, baby weighs the same as a hockey puck.


But however big, the important thing is that baby's skeleton is hardening from cartilage to bone, and is starting to accumulate fat. Fingers and toes now have their unique fingerprints, and joints are able to move and bend.

I'm definitely starting to experience some of the second trimester symptoms now.

• Heartburn- which I'm not helping by continuing to chug orange juice every morning
• Racing heart- It's happened three times in the last two days.
• Spider veins- I've started seeing some little ones popping up in the last few years, but all of the sudden they've gotten much worse. Something to do with increased bloodflow during pregnancy. I see lasers in my future...
• Reduced hair loss- I usually shed a ton in the shower, but it's slowly been happening less and less.

I've worn mostly maternity pants this week (no shirts yet), and whether or not I look pregnant definitely depends on what I wear. I wore an empire waist (non-maternity) dress on Monday, and got lots of "Oh look at your belly!" and "You look pregnant today" comments at work. But yesterday in my (maternity) jeans and school T-shirt, I heard lots of "I can't believe you're not showing at all!" I'm also coming to the conclusion that not all maternity pants are created equal, and despite my plan to spend next-to-nothing on maternity clothes, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy a couple of pairs of pants for work. Thankfully a couple sweet friends are letting me borrow some maternity shirts, so I won't have to spend a lot in that area.

I'm also starting to have name anxiety! It's really fun to talk about names in a hypothetical sense, but now that we actually have to name our baby, I'm kind of freaking out about it! We have a list of names of both genders that we both like, but nothing that has jumped out at both of us as definitely being THE name. Plus Stewart's favorites are not my favorites, although we do like both of each others' top picks. I actually had a dream last night that we told my family my favorite name for a boy, and they made so much fun of it that I ran out of the room in tears. (For the record, my mom does like my top boy's name, so I'm not sure where that dream came from.)

OK, I know all you really come for is the belly picture, so I won't deny you any longer!


And just so you know, after I looked at this picture, I changed my shirt before going in public. Because if you didn't know me and saw me in this, you wouldn't think "Aw, look at the cute pregnant girl.", you would think "Man, that girl shouldn't be wearing that shirt!"