16.5 Weeks: Emergence of the Gut

When I first found out I was pregnant, since I couldn't blog about it, I had this brilliant idea to start a journal. Like a real, written journal. I bought a cute blank book and started writing about my pregnancy in it, including weekly photos of myself and documenting my experiences. I was dedicated to it, thinking that it would be pretty cool for me to be able to hand the journal over to our baby some day. And it would be.

Except I apparently suck at journaling and I'm a good 5-6 weeks behind in writing about the pregnancy and pasting pictures inside. Whoops.

I still want to catch up on the journal, but just in case I continue to suck at life and never get around to it, I think I'm going to start chronicling a little bit on here, too. I figure I can dedicate one post a week to just providing an "update" on the pregnancy. I'll probably post about other pregnancy/baby related topics sometimes (like my previous posts on the nursery, the fetal monitor, etc.) but these will be my little "check-ins" to document things that happen throughout. I apologize if this type of post totally bores you. If it does, by all means, I encourage you to skip them.

Someone asked me last week if I'd be sharing belly photos. I'm not against sharing them, but up until last week, I really didn't have anything to show. It took what seemed like forever for me to get any sort of belly, but it's finally here:

16.5 weeks pregnant

It's not much, and I'm pretty sure my clothes still hide it pretty well, but it's there, and it's made a huge difference in the way I've felt this past week. I've been able to wear almost all of my regular pants, with the exception of a few pairs with which I had to use a Bella Band. But this week? Yesterday, I put on my go-to pair of black work pants. They zipped and buttoned up OK, but once I sat down on the couch to eat my breakfast, I realized that they were REALLY uncomfortable. I ended up unbuttoning them and wearing my Bella Band, but they still felt ill-fitting and I felt uncomfortable with myself all day. For lack of a better way to describe it, I felt pretty disgusting. Instead of feeling proud of my little belly and feeling pregnant, I just felt... fat. And even though I know I'm not fat, it's still a weird feeling to grow out of your clothes.

So instead of feeling like that again, today was the day... I busted out the maternity pants I bought at Kohls last week. And HOLY HELL, people--the difference in comfort and the way I felt was amazing. I mean, who can complain about pants with an elastic waistband? Heaven!

In other amazing news, I felt the baby move for the first time on Sunday. I was sitting in Easter Mass with my family, the priest was giving the homily, and all of a sudden, I felt this little pop/poke in my lower right abdomen. I immediately thought, What was that? and waited to see if it would happen again. Sure enough, a few seconds later, another pop/poke. I smiled because I was pretty sure it was the baby, and then it happened a third time. I actually couldn't keep from laughing a little bit! (Sorry to my fellow parishioners.) But what an incredible feeling to all of a sudden be able to feel this being that has been growing inside of you.

I've felt it a few times since then, too, but I'm generally only feeling it once a day at this point. On Monday night, I felt it when I was lying on the couch watching TV, and last night, I felt it as I was lying in bed. Just a few little pops/pokes and he/she goes back to resting and/or moving around more gently. I can't wait to be able to feel it more regularly. :)

I had a routine OB appointment today and all was well. I think I'm up a total of about 5 lbs. now, which I guess is within the normal range for this stage of pregnancy. I've been weighing myself once a week at home, just because I can't help myself. Prior to pregnancy, I was an everyday weigher, and although I recognized the need to not do that anymore, I couldn't just quit cold turkey! So even though I always have a pretty good idea of how much weight I've gained between appointments, I still HATE getting on that scale at the doctor's office. But today was good.

We talked to the doctor about all of the things I can't do on our upcoming vacation to Florida--including jetskiing or biking. :( I knew these things already, but it was still disappointing to hear that I "officially" can't do them. She laughed and told me to relax and "take gentle swims" and "float around and snorkel." I suppose I can handle that, along with lying by a pool with a virgin frozen drink. But man, it's going to be hard for me!

On the way out, I had blood taken (AGAIN--I swear, I haven't yet had a doctor's appointment where they haven't needed my blood) for a second trimester screening. They're going to check for a bunch of genetic disorders, even though I've already been tested for some of them when we had our first trimester screening (NT scan).

Now I'm good to go for another four weeks. Next appointment--20 weeks! But before that, we have our big ultrasound on April 23! Of course, we're not finding out the sex anyway, but it's still exciting to get a chance to see the baby...