17 weeks: baby is the size of a... mango still?

That ticker didn't change fruit with the change in weeks. Baby is about 6 inches long and about the width of my palm. He or she is getting brown fat deposits, a fat that helps with body heat. 

Not much has changed in the way I feel since last week. The biggest thing is exhaustion. I do feel like my belly is looking more and more like there's a baby in there. I like it! 

I had some lab work last week (blood and urine) and am awaiting the results. Fingers crossed. I did get some of the results back within a couple days. A nurse from my OB's office called to tell me I had a urinary tract infection (UTI) and a prescription was waiting for me. After some freaking out, research into the condition, the drug, and some contemplation, I started the meds. Then, the next day, I got another call from my OB's office saying they sent my urine sample in for further testing (a culture) and found that in fact I do not have a UTI, I just didn't do the urine sample right. Apparently I was supposed to do a "clean catch." If you're like me and have no clue what that means, here's a link with instructions: clean catch urine sample. I didn't do that. At all.

In other news, we just returned from Reno, Nevada after visiting my dear friend, Karen, and her family. That's where the baby bump photo was taken this week. She just had her second baby, Alex, in September. Now her family is complete. We loved spending lots of time with her, her husband, Andre, and their two sons, Markus (2 years) and Alex (4.5 months). Believe me we took lots of notes about everything - their gear, the way they set up the nursery, their routine, tricks, feeding, diaper changing, tag-team parenting, the list goes on. I am always amazed at the constant needs of infants and children! It's just non-stop. But it didn't scare us, it just made us more excited to have our own little one with us soon. Here's a photo of the two of us earlier today:

16 weeks: baby is the size of a mango

In my defense, this is the end-of-the-day bump AND it's right after dinner. Usually we take these photos in the morning and I think my belly is smaller then. I said this to Evan and he replied, "Sounds like a woman in denial."

Baby's bones are starting to harden at this point and soon I'll be able to feel baby move. Baby might also be sucking his or her thumb now, too! And his or her heart is pumping about 25 quarts of blood every day. According to Fit Pregnancy, baby is roughly the size of a gerbil. For some reason this is a disturbing image to me. Let's stick with the fruit.

Pregnancy is sure an exciting adventure in so many ways. I've experienced nothing like it before. I feel like my body is growing and changing so fast now. I'm officially into maternity clothing. It's so much more comfortable! Although I have to yank up my pants pretty often with that stretchy waist.

I'm still feeling tired a lot of the time and easily worn out. However, I've grown to accept this part of my pregnant life, and by honoring it instead of fighting it, my suffering has decreased. This shift in mentality came after a sob fest on Friday when I was saying, "Why is this so difficult for me? Why does my usual 10-hour shift take it out of me so much more now? Why can't I handle what I used to? I feel like I'm failing!" Evan did his best to comfort me, sweetheart that he is. Saturday morning I got over my pity party for good after yoga. Again, it felt the like instructor was talking directly to me. She was talking about how our bodies are working so hard to grow a life, even when it looks like we're doing absolutely nothing, and of course we're not able to be as active as we were pre-pregnancy. I accept that now.

We're heading to Reno, Nevada this Friday through Monday to visit my good friend, Karen. She just had her second child in September, another son. I'm SO EXCITED to spend some time with her and her family. We've been friends since we were six years old, so almost 30 years. She's so important to me and I really want Evan to know her better as well as for her to know Evan. They only just met for the first time on our wedding weekend. And I for one know I'll be watching very carefully to glean some parenting skills while I'm there!

15 weeks: baby is the size of a pear

I think this is the last day for those jeans, the last remaining non-maternity pants in my closet. Last week I packed all the clothes that don't fit anymore into bins and put them in the hall closet. So now ALL the clothes in my closet fit me, which feels good.

Baby just keeps on growing in there and now the legs are longer than the arms. S/he's also moving amniotic fluid through the nose and upper respiratory tract to help the air sacs in the lungs develop. Another interesting development: baby can sense light now! If we were to shine a flashlight at my belly, baby would likely move away. For some reason that is just so cool to me!

I know intellectually there is a baby in there, I mean I have seen the proof over and over, but it's just so hard to really wrap my head around. I wonder if that will change once I start to actually feel the baby moving.

Last week started great with a prenatal appointment on Tuesday morning before work. We heard the heartbeat with the fetal doppler for the first time! We'd seen it beating on ultrasound but never actually heard the fast little thump-thump-thump. So cool! Our appointment was short and sweet, just a weigh-in, hear the heartbeat, answer questions, and schedule another appointment. I'll be going in for some more blood work next week - the quad screen, which tests for neural tube defects like spina bifida among other things. We're of the  mind that we want to know everything there is to know, as long as there is no danger to baby. Some people prefer not to have all this genetic testing, NT scan, etc. Oh, we also scheduled our anatomy scan ultrasound for Feb. 11 right before we leave for Thailand. That's when we'll find out if baby is a boy or girl! We're holding off on name discussions until we know so as to avoid half the conflict. :-)

After a long day on Tuesday, I woke up Wednesday morning absolutely exhausted and with a pounding headache. Sometimes baby really sucks the life force out of me. As the week progressed I added a sore throat, sore ears, and nasal congestion. I did absolutely nothing except lay on the couch, take naps, and sleep 13 hours/night. I was so miserable and exhausted I thought something must really be wrong with me so I called the OB advice nurse. Do you know what she told me? "You just have a cold on top of the usual pregnancy symptoms." I felt like such a wimp in that moment! I took her advice and broke down and took two Tylenol, which I knew I could take but didn't want to drug my baby. Are you following my logic? Cheeseburgers okay, Tylenol not okay. Anyway, that helped. But what REALLY helped was having a cup of coffee on Sunday morning for the first time in weeks. I'm "allowed" 200 mg of caffeine/day but once I started weaning off the coffee in the very beginning it felt so good I went all the way. The coffee not only helped the headache and fatigue but also the pooping problem. Three birds, one stone.

I went to my second prenatal yoga class on Saturday and it was, again, awesome. I did much better on Broken Toe pose this time, the painful one I described last week. Now I'm thinking I can handle med-free birth after all. Ha!

14 weeks: baby is the size of an orange

I did my hair and makeup this week, can you tell? I felt too fancy for just a t-shirt and jeans so I added a necklace, too. Usually Evan is behind the camera on these but he had an early morning meeting so I was left to my own devices and I used the timer on the camera.

I get my information on baby's development from a number of sources, and this week they are conflicting. Baby is either 3.5" long or 5" long. Either way, he or she is also growing peach-fuzz like hair all over his or her body called lanugo. I have never heard that term in my life before today. Liver, spleen, and kidneys are all starting to function now.

I think I can say with confidence that my nausea is gone. YIPPEE!!!! Boy what a difference in my quality of life that makes! Hopefully I'll be getting more energy soon, too. Currently still sleeping 10+ hours/night and taking an occasional daytime nap on the weekends. I've been feeling some little aches and pains in my abdomen which I suspect is round ligament pain as baby grows and my ligaments stretch. I can feel my uterus now, and so can Evan, it's firm and round like a little exercise ball low in my belly. It's not what you see in the photo. That bulge is really my guts being pushed up and out by my growing uterus underneath. Sounds gross but that's what happens. Oh, and my digestive system is operating veeeerrrryyy sloooooowly these days so there's bloat. I wish there was a song about constipation like there is about diarrhea. Maybe I'll write one. The round ligament pain, feeling my uterus, the beginnings of a belly, these are all very cool experiences!

In other news, I went to my first prenatal yoga class on Saturday morning. I got a gift certificate to Yoga Shala from my mother-in-law for Christmas (thanks, Mary!). I'm pretty freaking psyched about this class. There were about 15 other women ranging from as far along as me (two others) all the way to due in a couple weeks. I've been feeling huge (fat) lately and being in this class made me realize I'm actually still pretty tiny. The yoga instructor actually talked about body image in the very beginning of class and it felt like she was talking directly to me. She was telling us to practice kind thoughts toward ourselves, like instead of thinking we're fat replace the thought with my body is growing a human being and it's amazing. That helped. It was a pretty easy class and I didn't break a sweat at all. In the past I've taken more of an athletic style of yoga but that's apparently not what this is. It's focused all on having a healthy pregnancy and preparing yourself for labor. She kept saying things like, "And this pose will help with contractions when you're in labor." At one point we were instructed to get on our knees and sit on our heels with feet flexed for an extended period of time. It was really uncomfortable. She told us the point was to get our bodies used to enduring pain without getting tense and be able to breathe through it. It was really hard and I thought to myself, "If I can't handle this, I'm really going to be a wimp in labor!" But I can see how this class will be helpful and it's fun to be around a bunch of other pregnant ladies.

Oh ya, and we went Facebook public last week. Here's the photo we shared announcing the pregnancy.