19th week. I've popped.

Some time in the last week or so, the beefsteak tomato (current fruit reference to size) outgrew it's lodgings and added an addition to the House o' Britt. I'm still at the point where people who don't know I'm pregnant may be wondering why I'm packing on the pounds, but it shouldn't be much longer until they're no longer afraid to offend me by asking about it. I woke up this morning and swore that my belly had suddenly become inflatable. Usually I'm bigger at night than the rest of the day, but I guess the baby had a growth spurt while I was sleeping. One of the many scary things I'm thinking about (there are a lot of them currently on my list) is that the beefsteak will put on 15 times more weight than this by the time we're done.

The little one is about 6" long now, head to rump. That's the size of a dollar bill. If you still have one of those, take it out, hold it up to your belly, and imagine a baby that long from head to butt, not including legs, tucked up inside of you. Also in development news: The baby is now covered in that white waxy stuff they always leave out of births that happen on sitcoms. It helps protect against chafing and bumps as well as those wrinkled fingers you get from staying in the pool too long. I'm told that gratitude is in order because that "vernix caseosa" helps keep things slick during delivery. Also in development is the meconium - the first poo, which is because he/she is now swallowing and processing amniotic fluid. Yummers!

Yesterday I walked about 6 city blocks, half of them uphill, with all of my bags, to catch the bus. By the time I got there, my abdominal muscles were tight and pulling and definitely reminding me that I'm pregnant. Not painful, but not entirely comfortable either. I'm still a pound less than before I got pregnant. I think I've been burning up some fat since my eating isn't back to normal, and maybe even losing some muscle since I've cut down to 1-2 workouts a week due to sheer exhaustion.

I may, MAY, have felt a little movement on Friday afternoon. Usually I know for certain that what I'm feeling is digestion-related, but this was a slight butterfly feeling in the lower abdomen that I wasn't so sure about - kind of like when you see a car about to get in an accident and your stomach goes all tingly. Nothing has happened since then, but there's still plenty of time. If the placenta is attached toward the front of my belly it acts as a cushion and movement isn't felt as early.

On Monday afternoon we have our first ultrasound!! We'll not only get to finally see our little beefsteak, if it cooperates we'll finally know gender and I can stop using "it" and "they" in place of a real pronoun. Hooray! We have a list of names started, but it will probably be awhile until we finalize. They're all pretty standard, easy to pronounce, easy to spell kind of names. They aren't too popular yet still familiar to most folks, and they go with "Sparks". We can't wait!!!

Top ten of all weekends

If it wasn't my favorite weekend of all time (which would have to rival our fantastic wedding whirlwind, so I don't think that's possible), it was definitely in the top ten. For starters, there were three days of wonderfulness. For another, Sean was home for ALL of them! Bonus for Britt!
On Saturday, after the crack-of-dawn feeding of Roscoe, we both fell back asleep until 8. Then, we watched t.v., brought some breakfast to bed, watched some t.v., fell asleep for a few more hours, watched some t.v., then got up around 3 to get ready for our dinner at Stella Mia. Afterwards we saw "He's Just Not that Into You", which had some pretty funny moments, and quite a few I could relate to directly. Then it was back to bed again!

Sunday was spent more than making up for the lack of productivity the day before. I cleaned out junk drawers, the desk, our closets, threw away a ton of things we never should have kept, washed and folded about 8 loads of laundry and just generally cleaned and organized the day away. Sean built a great set of shelves on the car side of the garage that perfectly match the ones he built on Friday on the other side. He's been working hard to help the Man Cave reach it's full potential.

On Monday we fully intended to be just as productive, but then Sean asked me to come with him on some errands that included test driving the two cars we were considering purchasing later in the Spring: a Honda Pilot and a Toyota Highlander. (See posting from last year) We started at Toyota and saw a Highlander we really liked until we were looking at what our financing might be and found out the sticker had incorrectly stated it was 4-wheel drive when it was actually 2-wheel. But by then we were still interested and pushed forward with other options. So, here is our newest addition!

The dealer actually gave me $1000 trade in value for the Jetta! As sad as I was to see my trusty little car drive away for the last time, sitting in the new one quickly erased those feelings. This sucker, in addition to being the color of a clown car (but Sean loves it, and I don't care enough for it to matter) also has: automatic windows and doors and keyless entry (none of which I have ever had before), hill assist, snow package, towing prep, 7 airbags, defrostable mirrors and lights, rear back-up camera, in-dash navigation system, 3rd row seating and leather seats (against my better judgement as a vegetarian - I can hear the cows crying). It's a dream to drive...so smooth and effortless. Of course, it has to be in comparison to the Jetta.

I've actually caught Sean quietly going out to the garage just to look at it. I'm just sayin'.

Neither of us has ever owned a car this nice, let alone one that isn't used. We feel oddly guilty about buying it. We know we've been talking about it for over a year, and that the Jetta wasn't going to be reliable or safe enough for when our new little responsibility arrives, and that everyone we know has had a much nicer car for years, but it still feels like so much more than we deserve. It's not buyers remorse - we're just too frugal to buy Sean boxers when they aren't on sale, so this is big.

To top it all off, though, I talked to our insurance agent on Tuesday about switching our coverage from Jetta to Ol' Blue and the quote she gave us was $64 a month. No, that's not $64 more than the Jetta, it's a total of $64 a month to insure the Highlander. *gasp* That's amazing. Apparently it's so safe that insurance is only $9 more than the Jetta. I'm still in shock over that one.

Somewhat graphic images *be advised*

I found a great diagram online that shows what everything looks like "in there" right now. It was titled 20 weeks, but since the baby goes up to the belly button, this person must not be short-waisted like me, so I figure it's close enough for now.
And here is the difference at 40 weeks (check out the squished bladder!):

Week 16

I'm a little confused about how this pregnancy timeline stuff is counted. Some things say I'm 16 weeks, some say I'm "in the 17th week". For those who are new to counting by weeks, I say I'm 4 months. Either way, things are moving right along.

Sean and I went to our second prenatal visit on Friday, heard the heartbeat again and this time remembered to record it. I e-mailed it out to a few folks so if you want to listen, just let me know. Everything is totally normal and our ultrasound is now scheduled for Monday, March 2nd! Which means we'll probably know the avocado's gender in three weeks!!!

Because I have a strong family history of Diabetes, I needed to take the glucose test a few weeks earlier than normal, so we did it while we were there at the clinic. I drink an 8 oz bottle of 50 mg of glucose, which tasted like flat-extra-sweet-orange soda, then waited calmly for an hour without moving around and had my blood sugar taken to see how my body adapted to the high levels. This stuff is so sweet it made me nauseous, The results came back over MyGroupHealth on Sunday and I had "elevated levels": 143 when the ideal range was 65-135. Not terrible, but a smidge high, which meant I had to do the THREE HOUR TEST. No less than 3 midwives sent me secure messaging to make sure I did it right away, so first thing Monday morning, after not having eaten since dinner the night before, I was there. I had an initial vial drawn and then drank the glucose, this time a lovely flat-extra-sweet-lime-soda flavor, and waited. An hour passed and I had another vial drawn. An hour passed and I had another vial drawn. An hour passed and I had another vial drawn. All while trying hard not to vomit the syrupy liquid back onto my own lap.

Turns out all of my levels were in the normal range this time, so NO GESTATIONAL DIABETES FOR BRITT!! *sigh of relief*

This weekend was also major milestone in another way - Sean and I went to a maternity store. I realized at Kristina's baby shower that my jeans were definitely not as comfortable sitting down as they were the weekend before and finally bit the big-belly-bullet. I got a pair of jeans and two tops for now because it's really all I had the patience (or budget) for. I'll need to get some work pants soon, though. Sean was actually very enthusiastic about shopping for me. With us, we tend to prefer to buy the other person clothes since we know they would rarely do so for themselves. Plus he got to take a picture of me wearing the sample belly they provide for size purposes. So, here is a preview of what's to come:


I'm currently not showing much belly, if at all, but I can definitely feel a firm lump when I lay down or bend over and I suspect it won't be long now. I can feel it up to my belly button already because I apparently am short-waisted. I think I'm just short-everything and that happens to be proportionate, but whatever. I've also lost 7 pounds thanks to morning (all-day) sickness, but I'm told I can count on all of that coming back and then some.

The baby is now an avocado about 4 1/2" long head-to-rump. That's bigger than my ipod. Oh jeez. That's big. *deep breath*

15 weeks... and counting

By the end of this week "the apple" is about 4.5 inches long and weighs as much as a slice of cheese. (I didn't make that reference up, I borrowed it from a web site.) I'm not quite sure if that is still head-to-rump or an actual length at this point.

The baby's taste buds already look like a mature adult's and doctors have learned that the amniotic fluid that surrounds it can smell strongly of curry, cumin, garlic, onion and other essences from a mother's diet.

The baby spends most days practicing breathing amniotic fluid and swimming about. Apparently they're quite mobile at this point, waving their arms, smiling and frowning, sucking their thumb, but I probably won't start feeling that for another few weeks. Unless I mistake it for gas.

On Friday we have our next prenatal visit. Still no ultrasound. We'll probably hear the heartbeat again, though. Nothing much has changed since our last visit, so I have no idea what we do this time. Oh, but I'll probably go to the lab and ingest a gallon of un-carbonated Mountain Dew-like juice so they can test my sugars. Diabetes runs in my family, so they do this test early for us lucky gals.

The buttons on my shirts scream in torture these days, although my pants ride low enough that they're still doing ok. I need to go maternity shopping. The clothes my wonderful friends loaned me are summer weight and I can't quite get away with them yet. I know it seems silly, but I always feel "hefty" when I go try on clothes and I'm fairly certain that trend is going to continue for awhile, so I'm not all that enthusiastic about hitting the racks.