22 weeks: baby is the size of a spaghetti squash

Baby girl is about 11" long and weighs just under a pound. Her brain is doing some rapid growth right now, hopefully getting really smart like her parents. She's looking more like a cute little newborn in there with little lips, eyebrows, and eyelids. I feel her doing some serious moving in there more strongly and frequently every day. It's wild. I don't know which body parts are moving but I picture her dancing like this:

I continue to feel pretty crummy, in the last three weeks I had a stomach bug followed by a cold followed by another stomach bug that put me in the hospital for IV fluids. I'm still nauseous and my plumbing's not right but when I feel that dancing baby in there I'm relieved that all these things are happening to me and not her. This has been a challenging pregnancy but I know even now that I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I love her so much already. Even though she only weighs a pound I've gained about 11 lbs in total. I was up more than that but lost a few from these stomach bugs. I figure I have plenty of time to gain the recommended 25-35 lbs. I'm loving my pregnant body and this baby bump. There's a blog called The Pregnant Chicken that a couple people have told me about and I spent a lot of time reading it this weekend. She's hilarious. There's one post about the stages of pregnancy that I identified with. I think I'm straddling Stages 3 and 4. I still feel cute but it is becoming a struggle to do things that require bending over.

You might have noticed I skipped week 21. Unfortunately, we had to cut our babymoon in Thailand short in order to make it home to spend a couple days with our dog, Abbey, before she passed away. She had been battling cancer for about a year and a half and took a sudden turn for the worst while we were gone. Thankfully we made it in time and sequestered ourselves with her for a couple days to soak up every second. We were able to have her euthanized at home, in her bed, very peacefully. She was my furry baby and I have gobs of great memories with her to make me smile, even though I miss her like crazy. Rest in peace, Abbey.