18.5 Weeks: Just for Kicks

Last weekend, my mom and I went shopping and I scored a bunch of maternity clothes. Thanks to all who left comments and suggestions last week! I found a few things at a bunch of different places--Target, Kohls, Motherhood, Sears, and H&M. The only problem now is that I still feel funny wearing most of them. I wore one of my maternity shirts to work this week and I felt like it was still a bit too big and not flattering at all. *sigh* Soooo my wardrobe remains pretty limited. I do have a few cute summer things that I'm excited to wear on vacation, though!

I don't think the bump has grown much from last week:

18.5 Weeks Pregnant

One thing that hit me today is that it's getting kind of depressing to look at a lot of my old clothes. When I was gathering laundry to do tonight, I found a pair of my regular work pants crumpled up at the bottom of the closet and it made me sad to look at them! As happy as I am to be growing a baby and seeing my stomach get rounder and rounder as a result, it's still just a strange transition. I guess I never really thought about how odd it would feel to have your whole body change shape.

Who would've expected pregnancy to be so life-altering? ;)

Still feeling really good. The baby is the size of a sweet potato this week, and I'm feeling it kick more than ever. I've been feeling him/her more during the day now, not just at night. But he/she is definitely most active once I get into bed. A cool milestone this week was that we started to be able to feel the kicks from the outside! I thought that wouldn't happen for several more weeks, but I was lying in bed earlier this week and the kicks felt so strong that I couldn't imagine NOT being able to feel them on the outside. I put my hand on my belly and the next time he/she kicked, sure enough, I could feel it on the inside AND the outside! At first I thought I was fooling myself, but I had Michael put his hand there and he felt it, too. Awww, Daddy feeling the baby for the very first time. :) So amazing.

The big distraction this week was that we had to buy a new car! We were planning to do it before baby anyway, but when Michael's car wouldn't start on Monday night, our timing for purchase was moved up a little bit. No big deal, we were only trying to squeak out a few more months without car payments. But now Michael has a nice, safe, family-appropriate car. We get to pick it up tomorrow... I'll post about it more this weekend.

Tomorrow is a big day--it's the BIG ultrasound! It's not so "big" for us because we're not finding out the sex, but we're still really looking forward to seeing the baby in the morning. If all continues to go well with the pregnancy, this will likely be the last time we get to see him/her until birth! It's crazy to think about. I'll admit that the past week or so, I've developed a serious curiosity about whether the little one is a boy or a girl. It's weird to think that we could know tomorrow, you know? I'd be lying if I said it wasn't tempting, but we know it'll be fun to keep it as a surprise and we're committed to remaining "Team Green." After all, September will be here before we know it. Ultrasound pics to come tomorrow, assuming we get some good ones!

That's it for now. Next week's belly pic will be coming to you from Florida! We leave for our trip this weekend. Life has been busy lately, and with the extra running around the car has caused us this week, I am more than ready for a vacation. Wish us luck for on-time, drama-free, uneventful travel!