20 weeks: baby is the size of a cantaloupe

Today marks the halfway point of this pregnancy and that seems like something to celebrate. Baby is about 10" from head to heel and about 10 oz in weight. She is forming sweat glands and immunities are transferring from me to her. I hope I'm giving her a lot of good ones. She's moving and kicking and squirming all over the place as I write this! She has been really active tonight.

I've been getting a lot of foot cramps the last few weeks and I guess that is a common thing in pregnancy. The kind where a couple toes suddenly get a mind of their own and break away from the pack. It's not really painful. I have another new pregnancy symptom brewing that I'm not too thrilled about - a linea nigra. It's a dark vertical line that runs down the abdomen starting at the belly button. When I read about it in Mayo Clinic's Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy I first thought, "WHAT?!" and then I vaguely remembered seeing it on other pregnant women's bellies. It happens to about 75% of us. It's really faint at this point but there's no denying it's on its way. It's really not a big deal and it'll go away after pregnancy, it's just one of those vain things. Another one of those vain things I didn't know about beforehand that's also happening are bigger and darker areolas.  It has something to do with preparing for breastfeeding. A more obvious target maybe?

Evan and I are in Thailand this week and next week for our babymoon.  A babymoon is a vacation for an expectant couple to enjoy a final trip together alone before baby. We booked this trip during first trimester with positive thoughts that second trimester would be a time I'd be feeling great. Aside from the complications I've been experiencing, I also had a stomach flu virus for five days last week! It was dicey right up until the day we left and we were prepared to cancel the trip and eat the sunk costs. I was still a little queasy when we left so I slapped on the Sea Bands I got for morning sickness a few months ago and was good to go. I'm being very careful about what I eat and also honoring my physical limitations and letting Evan go off and do some things on his own while I nap or rest in the hotel room. Today we went shopping and we were eyeing some things for the baby. A carved wood elephant, some itty bitty Thai baby clothes, a piece of artwork for the nursery. The baby bump photo was taken on a street in Bangkok today and the photo below is Evan with a street food cart guy holding a freshly prepared green papaya salad. Street food is everywhere! If this little girl ends up with a special affinity for Thai cuisine I'll know why.

19 weeks: baby is the size of a sweet potato

All these fruits and vegetables seem like they could be about the same size. It's still fun to see what fruit or vegetable comes up each week. This week baby is developing a greasy, white protective coating over her skin called vernix caseosa. This helps her skin keep from pickling in the amniotic fluid. We might see it on her body at her birth, like I did when I was watching Snooki deliver her baby on Snooki & JWoww a couple weeks ago. Quality TV right there. Baby's senses are really starting to develop now - smell, taste, touch, hearing, and vision.

We had our anatomy scan ultrasound this morning. It lasted about an hour and documented all of her little body parts and organs. Ten fingers and 10 toes confirmed. It was neat to see her moving on the screen AND feel the movements at the same time. That was a new experience since the last ultrasound and made the reality of the little person I see on the screen being in my belly more believable. We also got some good news at this scan: the placenta is now more than 3 cm from my cervix. Woo hoo! The ultrasound tech got every shot she needed except one from the front of the heart. Baby kept putting her arms and legs in front of her chest. She had me roll over on to each side, walk around the room, jiggled my belly a bit, but she just wouldn't cooperate! So, I'll have to go back in on Friday to try again just for the heart shots from the front. We got some great photos besides the usual profile shot. I'll share a cute one and one that's mildly disturbing but still cute.

Her cute little left foot:

This one reminds me of Skeletor but cuter:

Not much new with my pregnancy experience, just the ever expanding belly. I love love love it. And I love feeling baby move inside me, which I feel every day now. I wonder when we'll be able to feel her movements from the outside. The placenta is in the back of my uterus and it's just baby out front so hopefully we'll feel her move from the outside sooner rather than later.

In other news, I found $6 in a pocket today. I've had a challenging past few days and I needed that kind gesture from the universe.

I had lunch with a good friend today to celebrate her 40th birthday, we were in Reno the weekend of her birthday party. She has a 3-year-old daughter and it was fun to talk about her experiences with Emma. I also had dinner with a friend this weekend who brought along her 11-month-old daughter, Kira, and again we talked baby all night. It's so easy to do and I never get sick of it. This is the benefit of being the last of my friends to have kids - I get to glean all the learnings and advice from people I trust who have already been through it. I so appreciate it!

18 weeks: baby is the size of a papaya

Baby is moving like crazy, flexing arms and legs, punching, kicking, and doing somersaults. Baby is also yawning, hiccuping, sucking, and swallowing.

Well, it has been an eventful week! On Thursday morning, Abbey, our elderly dog, woke me up for her usual early morning walk. As she was descending the hardwood stairs her feet slipped out from under her and down she went all the way to the wall. As the words, "Oh noooo...." were coming out of my mouth, down I went right behind her. A total of 13 stairs. I have never fallen down the stairs like that in my life! Abbey bounced right back up but I sat there stunned for a second doing a mental scan of my body to see if I was okay and I thought of baby. I walked Abbey, fed her, administered her morning pills, and waited until my OB's office opened. As soon as it did, I called and was advised to go to the hospital for a stat ultrasound followed by a same-day appointment with my OB. My OB worried that I might have torn the placenta. And here I'm thinking shaken baby syndrome or a tiny broken leg. I was put on the ultrasound schedule for 2:00 and instead of waiting and worrying I decided to go to work and see a few patients. At the ultrasound we learned baby is just find and the placenta isn't torn, however, it is too close to my cervix. As my uterus continues to grow hopefully that will put more distance between the cervix and placenta. If not, I'll need to have a c-section. In the meantime I'm on pelvic rest... for the third time. As the ultrasound technician was scanning baby, she asked if we wanted to know the sex... "Yes!" we said in unison. So....

WE'RE HAVING A GIRL!!!

Evan's hunch was right and mine was wrong. I'm sharing a profile shot from that ultrasound below. You can see baby's right hand up by her face. We also have shots proving her sex but I won't ever be posting pictures of my daughter's genitals on the internet.

During our visit with the OB we also got some results back from the lab work I had done the week before. Everything is within normal ranges except one protein - Inhibin-A - which is abnormally high. This has been linked with delayed growth, pre-term birth, and pre-eclampsia. For this reason, and the placenta issue, I'll be monitored more closely from here on out (i.e. more frequent appointments and ultrasounds), and I may eventually need to be put on bed rest. Keep your fingers crossed for us. As much as this plants a tiny seed of worry, there are so many worse things that could have gone wrong that didn't, and for that I am grateful.

In related news, my OB also wrote a letter saying I should reduce my work hours to 30 hours/week due to pregnancy complications. I plan to have that conversation with my manager this week. Stay tuned for that outcome. I'm leaving out a lot of detail involving FMLA, human resources, and my union because it will be a blip on the radar in the end. The health of our baby and me are far more important than any bureaucratic red tape.

I'm looking at the ultrasound picture of our little girl again and thinking, "she's so cute!" We're giddy fools in the ultrasound room when we see our little one up there on the big screen saying, "Awwww, she's so cute! Oh she kicked, that's so cute! That's her hand by her face? So cute!" When really she's this fuzzy staticky white outline of a baby.

OH! I almost forgot the other exciting news: I have been feeling her kick the past three days!!! I was laying in bed and all of a sudden I felt a little tap tap... tap just below my belly button. I read it would feel like butterfly flutters or popping popcorn, but it feels stronger than that for me. It feels like someone is tapping their finger on my belly from the inside. When I told Evan later he leaned over and started singing You Are My Sunshine into my belly... and baby started kicking like crazy! Maybe she is getting to know Daddy's voice!