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!