18 Weeks

One week of therapy. That's all it took for me to pick up a cold from my lovely little students. I've been obsessive about handwashing....the first thing everyone has to do before starting speech therapy is wash their hands, and I've been wiping down the table with Clorox wipes about 10 times a day. Still no match for the mighty kid germs, apparently. Being pregnant with a cold is no fun, because I really can't take any of the good medicine that would make me feel better. It hasn't knocked me out completely, but I'm really looking forward to breathing through my nose again.

I haven't mentioned whether or not I've been feeling the baby move, and that's because I'm still not 100% sure. I think I've been feeling it for the last few weeks. It's a similar feeling to what I felt around 12 weeks, but feels a little bit more like concentrated jabs and twinges, rather than the continuous rolling type of sensation I felt back then. I guess the closest I can come to describing the feeling is that it's almost like a very light muscle spasm a couple inches below my belly button. So maybe I'm feeling my little sweet potato sized baby....I don't think I'll be completely convinced until I can feel it from the outside.

This is a very big week, because we go on Tuesday for our BIG ultrasound, when we should hopefully find out if we're having a boy or a girl. I am so excited to see the little one again....it has been 7 weeks since our last ultrasound and so much growing and changing has happened since then. It's funny, my belly still looks pretty small....I always pictured myself waddling in to the office with a huge belly by the time we got to find out the gender. All my belly growth is still really low, which makes sense because I don't think the uterus reaches belly button height until around week 20. But to me, the result is that I look like I'm just getting more of a spare tire around the middle, rather than a true baby bump.


Since I want to have full disclosure when it comes to my bump progress, you should know that for this week's and last week's pictures, I pulled my yoga pants down below the bump, which just lets it stick out there in all its bump glory. When I'm wearing pants that come up higher on my belly, it gets kind of compressed and I look much less pregnant. I know before long, nothing is going to hide this baby! Two more weeks and he or she will be the size of a cantaloupe...I doubt there will be any hiding that!

Stay tuned for (hopefully) the big gender announcement on Tuesday!!

Question for my mommy friends

The hospital offers a childbirth class, and we probably need to sign up soon in order to get a spot prior to our due date. It costs $110, and we could either go once a week for 4 weeks (evening classes) or do it all on one weekend. I think we should do it (even though I don't want to spend the money), but Stewart is on the fence. He wants to know if you took a childbirth/labor class and whether or not it was worth the time and money. Thoughts?

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!"

Confession

While waiting at a restaurant this week, I noticed another pregnant woman standing near us, resting her hand on her belly. Stewart and I had a quiet discussion about who we thought was farther along...he thought it was her, I think it was me. At that point, I admitted to Stewart that I sometimes rest my hand on my stomach in public on purpose, so people will think I'm actually pregnant and not just thick around the middle. And he told me I had to stop.

The great irony is that we were at Steak and Shake, waiting on milkshakes to go, which obviously WILL make one thick around the middle.

Not one to pass up the opportunity for drama, I pretended to be ticked and left Stewart by the door to go sit on one of the counter stools. With my hand on my belly, smiling smugly at my husband.

16 weeks

Meet our avocado baby! Exciting developments this week include the bones in the ear, which means that he or she can start picking up on our voices (and my growling stomach sounds, sorry baby!) We had a great weekend doing some baby shopping and hanging out with family and friends in Jax. We had lunch on Saturday with Stewart's cousin and her husband, who gave us the cutest little stuffed lamb and onesie. (Baby gifts are so fun!) Then we got to spend the evening and Sunday morning with my dear friends from college Deb and Ryan. My cough has started to subside, which helps with the headache. Overall my energy level had been ok, although today I was wiped out and took a two hour nap when we got back in town. I have one more week at work before I start seeing students, and I'm kind of dreading starting my all-day therapy schedule. I know I'm going to be SO tired.

So one of our objectives for the trip over to Jacksonville was to check out a couple strollers that we haven't been able to see in person. We really liked the Baby Jogger City Mini, which I think is our front-runner right now. It literally folds up in one motion, with one hand. I think I folded it up six times in the store, just because I couldn't believe how easy it was! And it's only 16 lbs, which isn't bad at all. Here's a picture, isn't it sporty? And check out the huge canopy!

Another one I've heard good things about is the new Peg Perego Si, but since it's really new we can't find one in a store anywhere. I'm not sure if I would choose a stroller sight unseen over the City Mini, which we know we like. I'm hoping I'll come across one somewhere in the next few months. If not, we'll probably go with the one above.
Here's the Si.


Stewart spotted the Bugaboo Chameleon when we went into a fancy boutique baby store, and declared it "awesome". Then he saw the $900 price tag and I had to catch him when he almost fell over. I know there are people who can afford it, but I still can't believe that people actually buy them! Here's the Bugaboo eye candy.


And last but not least, my 16 week belly picture. This was taken early Saturday morning, and I really think my bump has grown since then. It started expanding after our Cheesecake Factory lunch, but never really went back down! I got a cute pair of Gap maternity jeans on sale this weekend for $15, and I might be rocking them this week on casual Friday!

Body confidence, courtesy of a 3rd grader

A friend at work has two sweet girls, one in 3rd grade and one in 5th grade at our school. Today as we were walking out to the parking lot together, she told the girls that I was going to have a baby. Their eyes got really big and they just kinda stared at me, until Melissa prompted them to tell me "congratulations." As I was pulling out of the parking lot, she flagged me down and told me that the younger one had said "But she can't be having a baby! She's skinny!" Bless her little heart.

This is from the same girl who last year, after seeing me after school in my gym clothes said "Ms. Courtney, you look CUTE in shorts!"

If I have a girl, I'm going to have to take lessons in raising her from Melissa.

Yesterday's appointment and today's announcement

The cat's out of the bag at school! I had asked my principal not to tell anyone until my doctor's appointment yesterday (more on that later). So when I got to school this morning I told a couple of the front office ladies, and then was on my way to go tell my friend Megan, who I've worked with for the last three years. Just my luck, the principal intercepted me along the way and excitedly asked if everything had gone well. When I said it had, she practically started jumping up and down and said "Can I make an announcement now??" I had kind of been leaning toward not making a big school-wide announcement, but she was practically humming with excitement and who was I to ruin her fun? So I told her yes and she literally ran to the intercom to announce it. Can you tell I work for an enthusiastic and child-living principal? Since the school is only one year old, I'm the first faculty member to get pregnant so everyone has been super excited. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "This will be our first baby otter!" (Obviously the otter is our mascot.)

As for the doctor's appointment, it was kind of underwhelming. I saw a different doctor like I thought I would, and while he was nice, it was obvious that it was just a quickie checkup appointment. He had a student with him who found the heartbeat with the doppler (150 bpm). Stewart and I later joked that other than that, the whole appointment could have been done over the phone! It just felt kind of rushed and I didn't quite feel like I was able to get all my questions answered. So I'm looking forward to seeing my doctor again in three weeks. And I'm REALLY looking foward to that appointment because I'll have an ultrasound and hopefully find out whether we're having a boy or a girl! I am so anxious to find out!!