22 weeks

Starting to feel more like my belly is out front now.  Every now and then I even catch myself starting with the pregnant waddle.   Everything still looks good.  My last cervical check measured me at a 5, so still nice and long.  I've had a few contractions here and there, but nothing to be concerned about.   Only 2 more weeks until baby hits viability.

In the next month or so I will probably be seeing the most rapid change in belly size.  I never made it past 35 weeks with C, so I don't know what the end feels like.   I think it was around 24 weeks that I started getting some swelling too.  I'm hoping being a lower weight will help this time, but paired with the arrival of summer I'm sure I'll get some.  Once that happens, monitoring weight gain will go right to hell.  I'm still doing pretty well....around 12-14lbs gained depending on the degree of water retention.  I've got a little more retention already than I realized....this past weekend was a little crazy and I didn't get around to eating lunch until almost 3pm one day.  Between 7am and 3 I lost about 3lbs of water weight.  Whoops.

So here are my last 2 bump pics.

"Popping tags"

It is resale season and I've been hitting them hard.  I picked up one lot of about 25 items from a fellow local moms...it was an all or nothing deal for $12, so some of it is showing a bit of wear, but we had the same with hand me downs for C and used the hell out of most of it anyway.   Today I went to one of the few BIG resales in our area and picked up everything you see below for $25.....and $8 of that was 3 sets of PJs for C (harder to score cheap deals as they get bigger).  Most of the onesies were 50 cents and show little to no wear! 

 

We also got a big storage bin FULL of clothes for C from one of R's co-workers.  The child is seriously set for the next year as long as he is in 2T.  So I'm pretty sure, with the exception of a few heavier winter items, I am set for kid clothes until Christmas.  Score!

20 weeks (and 19 because I'm lazy)

And the blog slacking continues.  Not much difference between 19 and 20 weeks though so I'll just mush it all together.   Our anatomy scan was last week and everything looked great.  I wasn't really worried, while it isn't a logical approach, part of me felt like since everything was fine with C, the same would go for this one since they are from the same batch of embryos.  Silly, but it made me feel better.   However, this little gal gave the tech a run for her money.  1.5hrs of trying to get all the right measurements, with the hardest shot being the face.  I guess they need a single picture of the mouth and nose, and she kept turning or blocking her face.  I almost asked if something was wrong after the tech spent almost 30 minutes trying to get the shot, but I could see in split second flashes that there was no abnormality so I kept quiet.  On a fun side note, we had to bring C with us because our appt was at 7:30am....thank goodness for streaming video.  I never thought we'd be the parents entertaining our kid with a smartphone, but sitting in that dark room we didn't have a lot of options.  He was a champ and made it through with only one or two attempts to flee down the hall.

Here is our little girl!

 

They also did the usual cervical check and things still looked good there.  Baby is measuring around a week ahead and estimated at 11oz as of `19w2days, so right up there with her brother.  Hopefully she doesn't have his plans of arrival in mind, but I am still starting to feel the pressure of time running out.   We will be moving C to the bedroom next to the nursery and keeping the nursery mostly as is.   I'll devote a whole other post to this, as my ideas keep piling up, but C's room will be transportation themed and I'm hoping to have it ready for him by the end of May.   I've started buying some girl clothes here and there at resales and I'm lacking a staging area for all this.  We don't want to move C over until at least June because his new room will have a twin bed, but I want her clothes sorted and ready by 34 weeks, which is mid-July.  34 weeks is when I'll be stopping this progesterone shots.  I've done 4 so far and unluckily each one has been progressively worse.   The first 2 were easy and I thought people were wussy for whining about them, but Monday's shot burned like nothing I've felt from a shot before.  One more shot left in this vial before ordering more, hopefully it isn't a continuing trend.

 

Not much difference in bump size between the 2 weeks, but here are both anyway.

18 and Team....

PINK!!!!  So very excited to be expecting a little girl.  Of course we would have been thrilled with another boy, and that certainly would have made many things easier, but now we will have the best of both worlds!

We did the reveal on Saturday, and after a little more effort than I had imagined was needed in finding a big box, it went really well.  Our neighbor did a great job putting it all together and I think we got some cute pictures.   I normally don't put full pictures here, but I guess I'm at the point where there is enough identifying info here anyway that if someone knew me, they could put 2 and 2 together, so I may as well AW it up.

We saved the balloons and told our families on Easter by having C walk in with a pink balloon.  Simple but fun.  We've told several of our friends as well but haven't made it "facebook official" yet.  I only got the pictures yesterday and at this point we might just wait for extra confirmation next week at our anatomy scan.

On a less fun note, I'm still not feeling right half the time.   I went back a re-read entries from this point with C and I honestly can't remember if I felt this way with him or not this early.  The amount a stretching and pressure I feel in my lower belly is what I remember in 3rd tri with C, but more odd.  It is like someone is pushing on parts of my belly sometimes, but it isn't clear contraction tightening so I don't know WTF is going on.  I'm going to really work on upping my water intake for the next day or so and hope for an improvement, otherwise I guess I'll call the OB.  Baby is still super active so I know she is fine in there for now....I even saw movement last night!  A good kick I'm assuming, right around my belly button.  I guess I'm finally in the showing more than the first time through stage, so maybe that is part of it.