Scans and Squash

First off, thanks for sharing in our girl excitement! It is an interesting situation to be SO excited to be having a girl and know at the same time that if we found out we were having a boy we would have been equally excited! It's so fun to know and stop calling the Little One "It"!

The 20 week scan was pretty amazing. The details of the little body were so much easier to see now that she is the size of a weird bumpy Fall squash :)

"I'm actually the size of a banana, but Mom squashed it, so squash it is!" No pun intended.

 The placenta is far away from my cervix, so no placenta previa and all the parts checked out exactly right! The most difficult part to see was in between her legs. Apparently we have a modest one! Hopefully that will serve her well in her teenage years ;)

The ultrasound tech got all the way through the scan and said the best she could give us was her best guess. WHAT!?!? I almost lost it because I thought we wouldn't be able to find out. The Doctor came in to do his part of the scan and also revealed that from the images the tech had gotten he was also not sure. Fab. But FINALLY he got a good glimpse and was able to say with 99% certainty that we have a Little Miss growing in there. I'll take those odds. 

I must have been giving off strong girl vibes because 99% of people asked thought I was having a girl, but didn't know why. On the day that we saw the heartbeat for the first time, one of the receptionists was the first to predict that we were having a girl. At 6 weeks 4 days. Even strangers who predicted thought girl, so I think I would have been shocked if it was a boy.

Now on with the decorating of the nursery! And of course, some shopping! Shopping for maternity clothes is just not as fun as regular clothes, so I'm going to displace my retail indulgences onto my fetus. Woot woot!

Pink or Blue?

Well Guys, what do you think? Pink...or blue?

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PINK it is!!! There's a baby girl in there!!!

Hmm...Where'd That Come From?

Fall has brought with it cooler days, everything pumpkin, falling leaves, and some weird stray hairs and nipple "stuff".

A few nights ago I looked down at my bare belly while greasing it up with some stretch mark preventing oil and noticed a little gathering of little peach-fuzzy blond hairs on the lower portion. I have no idea what that's about. Then I noticed some white flakiness on my nipples, what appears to be a tiny bit of dried milk. Lactation, check. This was a weird week in the body department, people!

Nothing much else has changed except that I am having a little bit harder time sleeping at night. Aside from still waking up at least twice a night to pee, I am finding it harder to find a comfortable position. A big, giant pregnancy sleep pillow may be in my future.

Nineteen completed weeks of growing a baby. NINETEEN WEEKS?! How did that happen?! We are just about half way there?! I will spare you from more "?!" combos, but really, I never anticipated the weeks would fly by like this. In just a few days we have our scheduled anatomy scan where I will find out if this little one is a Mr. or a Miss! I CAN. NOT. WAIT!!!! I am so excited to find out the gender that I have almost forgotten that they will also be checking out all of the other parts to make sure everything is looking a-okay. Just as long as everything looks healthy and on-track, we will be happy, but I am so, so excited to know I can hardly stand it.

I don't know if I'm missing some pregnancy intuition, but I have absolutely no inklings or feelings on which sex it is. I do have to say, probably 95% of people that have made a prediction on gender (it's funny how many people do this!) have guessed that I'm having a girl. Most have said that they just have a "feeling". Only time will tell!

Without further ado...

Baby is the size of a Winter Squash. Okay, the book said large mango, but it is not mango season, so none to be found!

Also, a fellow blogger suggested I make a page with weekly bump shots, so I started that too. So if you're not in a bump viewing place, avoid my "Belly" page like the plague.

Sexy or Awkward

This week started off at a bachelorette party. It was awesome to relax with girls, in the sun, poolside for a weekend. When we were told there was a "surprise" for the bachelorette on one of the nights, my first guess was stripper. I was confused when a woman showed up at the house...then pleasantly surprised when I found out we were taking a burlesque class. It was pretty hilarious and also super awkward. What I learned is: 1) Air-humping is super weird. At all times. 2) Some people were born to be strippers (or have insanely lucky husbands). 3) Pregnant ladies doing burlesque are cute, way funny, and sexy? For some reason everyone was very enthralled with the pregos (there were two of us) doing burlesque and couldn't stop telling us how hot we were. Hey, I'll take it.
Aside from bacheloretting, the week was pretty eventful. On the plane ride home I felt what I thought was the first "flutter". But I wasn't convinced because of all of the plane vibrations. And because it didn't feel like a flutter at all.

  Tuesday I had a checkup with my OB where we heard the heartbeat for the very first time ever! I was half expecting/hoping that they wouldn't be able to find it because they couldn't last time and that we would get a little ultrasound peak. No go, but still fun to hear it beating away (at 140ish beats per minute). My OB asked if I had felt movement yet, to which I replied, "maybe?" Apparently that's a very common answer.

The next day I felt movement FOR SURE. When I say it doesn't feel like a flutter, I mean it doesn't feel like a flutter at all. The way I describe it is a poke from inside, which kind of makes sense since the legs are probably about the diameter of a finger :) It has been one of the more exciting parts of the pregnancy so far to finally be able to have some almost daily tangible evidence that something is growing (besides my belly). It's also amazed me how much that little one moves in there! Usually I feel a series of kicks in one focused area, then nothing. Then the next series will be in a completely different area of my tummy, which gives me images of the baby flipping and somersaulting around in there. Pretty amazing peeps.

This week the acrobatic bebe is about the size of a sweet potato.

And a side view!

Side Photos Are Mandatory

To sum up my week....POP! Because that's what my belly did! I'm pretty enthralled with it on most days, to be honest with you all. And so are most other people. It's kind of strange to have random people ogling my body part, but totally less weird when I think of how many baby bumps I stared down in the last three years.

I am starting to feel pregnant again after the little break between week 13's nausea and now, but in very different ways. I have noticed that I get dehydrated a lot quicker than normal, so I am trying hard to consume a lot of water. The peeing sometimes stands in my way. Twice this week I ended up with a headache which I know was from dehydration.
Another thing I have noticed is an increased amount of swelling in my hands and legs by the end of the day, especially if I haven't had enough fluids. I thought that came later in pregnancy!?
And last, but not least...it is definitely harder to haul my own body around than it ever has been. I don't know if it's me being out of shape...quite likely since exercise has been scarce. But I'm also starting to think maybe it's just the extra weight I'm carrying around that is making the difference. I don't think I'm way over the weight gain curve, but I do think I have put on more than the necessary amount. I have been back to my normal eating habits since the nausea ended, so not really sure what all of this gain is about. No one told me I was going to pack on so many pounds in the butt area ;) Oh well, all in the name of the sweet baby growing in my uterus, right?

"I'm an onion-sized babe!"

Hometown Baby

16 weeks has come and gone, as did a second maternity shoot...hence the late post, just got some of the photos finally! We did these in our hometown and had so much fun tromping around our old stomping grounds!

Week sixteen seemed monumental to me for some reason, I have no idea why. I think I've started thinking of milestones in 4 week increments. Next up...20 weeks! I have to say, all the info out there is true- the second trimester rocks. I didn't realize how tired a was until my energy came back! I feel pretty normal except when I look down and notice my "gut". It really is the best descriptor for what will soon me a "bump" because it definitely looks more like a beer belly than a baby :)

Our little Bambino (as the Hubs likes to say) is now the size of an avocado. Yummmm. Wait, that's weird.

More weekly posts will be rolling out soon, I have 2 more in the queue!

Alive and well.

I apologize for the gigantic break in posts, but it has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks around these parts! I am 17 weeks exactly and planning on posting my weekly photos ASAP. We took a second round of photos with my photographer friend and are still waiting on week 16's photo! Otherwise, weekend trips galore are my life right now, tiring but feeling mostly great. I'm off to a bachelorette party in Palm Springs this weekend and definitely looking forward to some sunshine, weird part flab/part bump bikini moments, and hopefully no gross strippers!