Our lives are made in these small hours, these little wonders... these twists and turns of fate. Time fails away, but these small hours, these small hours still remain

18 weeks! And Lil G is now the size of a mango. Apparently the next few weeks are supposed to include some significant growth spurts for G... grow baby, grow! 

We went for an ultrasound yesterday (anatomy scan) and had a doctors appointment. Lil G must've known we didn't want to find out the sex because he/she was sitting with its legs crossed over it's genitalia. Also of note, the wee babe had its head buried into my uterus (wow, doesn't that sound fun?!) and they weren't able to get a full facial view, so I'm going to have another anatomy scan in 4 weeks. Otherwise, the anatomy scan looked great! 2 kidneys, a happily beating heart, 2 feet, 2 hands, bending elbows and knees. G was also measuring in the 61st percentile. The doctor seemed pleased with that, so I'll take it. I've never been a perfectionist, so clearly neither is this child (must take more after me than Jas, in that regard). 

This whole process of incubating a baby will never cease to amaze me. It's a miraculous little wonder! Every time I deliver a baby, I think about how amazing bringing life into the world is. It's mind-blowing. Ok, end thought. 

Now onto changes this week...

·       Maternity Clothes: I lived in scrubs this week, and those tops are definitely getting tighter. So are t-shirts! They never used to be tight around my belly, but they certainly are now. And the belly is definitely bigger at night. I will take a picture either next week or the following...I just want to make sure the belly is looking good and round for you all, and not so squishy. :) 

·       Weight Gain:  Still nothing! I'm so thankful. I feel great, and if I was packing on the pounds I would really be stressing out. I'm hoping I don't suddenly balloon overnight, but so far so good (knocking on 600 pieces of wood). 

·       Stretch Marks: None yet! Still lathering up with lotion like it's going out of style. 

·       Movement: I didn't feel a whole lot this last week, however, yesterday... I definitely noticed some distinct, non-gassy, mild thumps in the area where they had scanned the baby during the ultrasound. I'm putting that in the win column! Yeah for fetal movement! 

·       Sleep:  This week was definitely worse than last. I have always been a tummy sleeper. Yea... well that's not working out so well. I'll start out in like a side-lying quasi-belly sleeping-ish position...and then my uterus (there we go with that word again... I'm sure men everywhere are squirming a bit whilst reading that), starts to ache. It's a bizarre feeling area as of late...my good ol' UTERUS... it pushes on my bladder so I pretty much feel like I have to pee 90% of the day, and if you touch it, it's like a little tender/ticklish if that makes sense. It's bizarre. I'm not really a fan. And I'm not sure what I'm going to do having to sleep completely on my side... Guess I'm just going to have to figure that one out. I may purchase one of those maternity pillow things... 

·       Things I miss:  Ok, so going along with the weird feeling in my uterus, if I crouch down with my knees together, it pushes on my abdomen and makes my uterus hurt... so I have to do this squat thing with my legs apart. Definitely NOT ladylike, but much more comfortable to take the pressure off my belly. So, in a roundabout way, I guess I'm saying I miss being able to crouch down without really having to think about it.  I'm also noticing it when I sit in a chair, upright, I have to have my legs a little bit apart. So not cute to look at, but sorry ya'll, my comfort is first priority. Okrrrr?! 

    The other thing I miss is being able to do is sleep through the night and not have to wake up multiple times to pee. Everyone says this is just to prepare you for when the baby comes and you have to wake up multiple times through the night to care for it, but I'm over that. The kids not here yet. Let me sleep. 

·       Energy: This week I felt like the energizer bunny! I felt great. More than enough energy, stayed up later than normal. 

·       Symptoms:  I have a linea nigra (the dark line that some women get, right in the middle of the abdomen)! It started just from my belly button and down to my pelvic bone, now it goes above my belly button. It's pretty faint on top, but you can definitely see it. 

     Perhaps I should make a bullet for cravings... but, I cannot get enough of tart things- I'm eating grapefruit like it's my job, sour grapes, sour apples, sour candies... if it's sour I want to eat it. And not stop. I guess there are worse things I could be craving- like a vat of gravy, pickled pigs feet (gag, honestly I don't even know why I wrote that), a whole pizza... I'll stick with the sour stuff. 

·       News:  Jas and I have a running list of baby names going... and just when we think it's narrowed down, it's not. It's been kind of fun, it seems like every day I come up with a new name. At this point, I think the list has somewhere between 20-30 boy/girl names on it... clearly that will have to be narrowed down. Our plan is to come up with 2-3 names for both a boy and a girl and then decide once Lil G pops out (note I said "pops out"... I have convinced myself that I'm going to have a wonderful, easy and peaceful delivery- DO NOT ruin my dreams). 

  
Todays agenda includes moving all of the furniture from the back bedroom into the front bedroom and vice versa. We have decided to put the crib and baby gear in the spare bedroom as opposed to our bedroom, and the back bedroom is just not big enough. So, this will be fun. Luckily Unfortunately for me, I am restricted from heavy lifting, so Jas will have his hands full. I'm sure I'll be able to be a good foreman though... being bossy is not something I struggle with.