No Rest for the Weary

25 Weeks, 1 day
Cauliflower, Rutabaga, or Bag of Flour (depending on the website)


I have had to travel a bit for work lately, and it won't slow down anytime soon. In the interim, I have had the worst sleep one might imagine. People say that later in pregnancy, baby is helping mom gear up for the frequent sleep-wake cycle of newborns. But that junk doesn't usually start until later in the third trimester. I am still (for a couple weeks) in the second trimester, and I'm supposed to be enjoying this time.


Don't get me wrong, I truly do enjoy the fun wiggles and jiggles of my squirmy-worm baby. I just prefer that they not be at 3am. And, being pregnant with a third kid while managing the lives of two other kids is not exactly a cake-walk in the first place. Thus, I am about as exhausted as I have ever been, despite this time supposedly being the "easiest" or the most relaxing part of pregnancy.

Halfway There

20 Weeks
Mango
Today is the first day they start measuring my fruit-baby from crown to heel, rather than from crown to rump. He is now about 10 inches long and weighs about 10.5 oz. However, at the ultrasound in week 18, they estimated he already weighed 10 oz. So, I may have an oinker. I neglected to show you our son, Jack Skellington, so he is pictured below:

"Blueberry" at 18w3d

I rotated the image so he could show you his "Whazzup" face, which looks pretty scary and awesome. I feel him wiggling all the time now, but only from the inside. I put my hands on the outside and can't feel anything but my heartbeat in my fingertips. Mama blood is powerful. I am a bit worried he will be a super-anxious kid, given all the stress I am under these days. Either that, or maybe he will be the most mellow kid because he needed to counteract all the cortisol his mother is kicking out. Hoping for the latter. Regardless, we're halfway to meeting him!

October 15th

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. According to the official site, the entire month of October was designated as National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. There are so many organizations out there to help out these days with loss of infants and pregnancy: First Candle, Pilari, and the T.E.A.R.S. Foundation, to name a few. But in 1988, there wasn't much. People hurt in silence. As a friend said to me, the hurt will be there forever and ever. But we can heal by moving forward. Into the future, and into life. We honor our children today. We honor the memories of those who are not with us by celebrating the ones who are, or by crying, or by lighting a candle, or by sharing our stories.

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19 Weeks, 4 Days
Grapefruit

I feel my son squirming. Now is pretty much the halfway point, though most people would just say 20 weeks is. I'll probably post something to that effect in a couple days. Probably in the next week, the Hubs will be able to feel the squirming, too. I haven't gotten around to digitizing the pictures from last week's ultrasound, but suffice it to say, our child looks like Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Good thing we like that movie! As I remember my child who did not join us in August, but who passed away in January, I am struck by the feeling that I am still blessed. I feel my son move again. He's getting comfortable. He still has a long way to go before he joins us. And I am not going to rush him.

Wow, your belly just popped!

18 Weeks
Dragon Fruit (or, if you are boring, Sweet Potato)
My exotic little dude is kicking a lot more now. I can't quite make out a pattern to it yet, so kick-counting might not happen for another week or two. The fantastic news is, I will get to see him on ultrasound in just a few days!!! Pics will be posted. No worries. Everyone loves ultrasound pics, right? Right??


My workouts have had to adjust. I'm now to the point where my center of gravity is shifting up and forward, so I can't dart all over the place in multiple directions. I also can't be on my back anymore (so no more bicycle kicks). Sad as it may seem, someone who was working out near me asked me why I wasn't showing yet (at 16w, 5d). Someone who was with the asker (who also happened to be a family medicine doc) replied, "Oh, she shouldn't be showing yet." How little he knew! Even as a health care provider, he evidently didn't know that there's a wide range of when the "bump" appears. I'm short in stature and have had two kids before, so there's really no surprise that I had a little "beer gut" by then.


However, in the past few days, I have noticed a rapid progression to roundness. I lamented to some colleagues at the gym that I might need to start bringing a beach towel instead of a regular bath towel for my post-workout showers. The bath towel doesn't quite cover all the naked real estate anymore. It sort of happened suddenly, which is just as I remember it before. Moving toward the fifth month of pregnancy, it's about time he decided to get large! Right now, Blueberry (the size of a dragon fruit) is about 5.6 inches long (from the top of his head to his little bum) and weighs about 6.7 ounces. I switched to my maternity ACU this week as well. I couldn't button the trousers anymore, so... here we are, elastic.


I have decided, however, that my next mission will be to redesign the maternity uniforms. One major flaw in all of them (dress uniforms or no) is that they are almost entirely devoid of pockets. I dreaded switching over to the maternity gear, not because I was ashamed of my growing midsection, but because I didn't want to be without pockets. Where will I keep my keys, wallet, lip balm, cell phone, ID badge, and all the other junk I carry around? I certainly can't use a PURSE. Obviously, whoever designed the maternity uniforms (a) is a man, (b) has never had children, (c) lacks practical thinking, or (d) all of the above.

Sweet Sixteen

16 Weeks
Avocado
I'm getting my "swole" on. Today, I am starting to look more like that evening picture from a couple posts ago. Fair enough.... because my little dude is 3 1/2 ounces and 4 1/2 inches long from crown to rump. I haven't felt another twinge since that first time, which makes me think that first time was a false alarm. Bummer. But, as an experienced mama, I should be able to feel some squirms soon. Part of how soon that will happen depends on exactly where within my uterus the little squirt has dug in. Because the uterus has no nerve endings for feeling, and neither do the small intestines that are also hanging out in the neighborhood, the only way a mama can feel her baby is if the little guy or gal kicks to the front (and the belly nerves can catch it) or in the bottom (so the bladder, vagina, anus, or other areas of the pelvic region can catch it). This explains why some have described those "flutters" as gas, feeling like they need to pee, or other fun things. Since my "works" are all tilted to the rear, my best chance of feeling movement this early is on those downward kicks. And that, of course, is if Blueberry is down low. Right now, I know he's skinny and covered in hair (called lanugo). I also know the top of my uterus is about 3 inches below my belly button. And is going to get bigger and bigger!


Time to break out more maternity clothes.

Bumpin'

Last night, while we were lying in bed, I told Devlyn to put his hand on my stomach and feel the baby move. I joked, "Of course, once you put your hand there, the baby will probably stop moving." I was wrong.

The baby kicked Daddy about 2-3 times. I think it kind of freaked him out. But it was so exciting. I think it makes things that much more real for him, too. It's all very real to me because I get to feel the wiggles all the time. But he's only seen ultrasound pictures (which is really awesome, too). Now that he felt our little one move, I think putting the picture together with the feeling is where the magic happens.

Yes, that's you in there!

I have finally learned to recognize the wiggles as "baby wiggles" instead of gas. Hooray. So all those descriptions of fetal movement didn't really do anything but confuse me. Not to mention my mother's "It feels like you have to go to the bathroom" description.

Here's what it feels like (to me) sometimes:
* Bump-bump-bump against the inside of my abdominal wall (like knocking)
* A "squirming" sensation just above my bowel (like maybe gas still in the process of working its way down)
* A tickle on the inside (I actually laughed aloud a few minutes ago, and I'm not very ticklish)
* A feeling like you might need to burp, but when you do... you realize the feeling is much lower than your esophagus

The bottom line is, there isn't a perfect way to describe it. Not only is every fetal movement (with just the one baby I'm carrying) different, but my sensation of it is likely different from other moms-to-be, and my descriptions are as well.

The good news is, I've been feeling them for a few days now (and I can retroactively include those feelings I wasn't sure about before because I'm sure now). Historically, women have estimated their baby's date of birth at about 147 days after they first felt the baby move. By my calculations, that will put baby at 13 January (5 days late)...if that's even a reasonable estimate. Of course, I know that babies are on their own schedule.

Provided all goes well with the echocardiogram and the next few ultrasounds, I'm anticipating a healthy, full-term baby (I've been saying all along he/she will be late). The best thing ever was when I was at my OB appointment, and the nurse midwife listenend to the heartbeat with the Doppler...baby had the hiccups! I take all small victories as a sign things are going well. Who cares what the doctor said?

There is no sudden realization.

All that whining I've been doing about not feeling the baby move. I guess I thought I would just kind of know when I could feel it. It would be this special, clearly identifiable moment of clarity when I could say, "Ha! There you are!" and document the date and time.

Unfortunately, it isn't like that for the first-timer. I've been feeling little twinges and gurgles and stuff for a while (see back a few blogs). It's just really tough to distinguish regular body gurgles and baby movements. On the next go-round (if I decide to do this again someday), I'm sure I'll have that "Aha Moment" I was looking for this time, because I'll know what I'm feeling.

But really, when I lie down and am quiet (or even sitting here, as I type), I can feel a little bump, or bubble, or gurgle, or some similar feeling (not those "flutters" many people kept describing, or "the feeling that you have to pee" like my mother said). I tried really hard to focus at the ultrasound, to see if I felt anything when I saw the baby move. But the baby wasn't super active, and plus my stomach kept growling because I was on a partial fast so it overrode any other wiggles I might have noticed.

I'm kind of lazy right now, but I have twenty different ultrasound pictures to choose from. And since the baby was hiding its genitalia, I feel comfortable enough to post a few. Just not right now. The talking of food has made me hungry. Plus, it's time for dinner anyway.