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!!!