23 Weeks

This week I had my monthly appointment with the midwives, which went well. I measured right on target, gaining fine, and baby was still a bit feisty when she tried to listen to the heartbeat. We talked mainly about food and nutrition (which I'm doing well with, just need to eat more yogurt and perhaps fewer cupcakes), and it turns out they did receive my sequential screen results from 6 weeks ago (it was just filed in a different place online than I was expecting), so it turns out we're still in a really good risk category (i.e., very low) for the genetic issues the test screens for. New baby also is kicking harder, it seems, since I was able to watch it kicking very clearly from the outside :)

I'm participating in a couple of different studies, one of which is looking at any correlation between physical activity and duration of labor. I had the first interview to talk about that this week, and although I was feeling pretty good about my physical activity beforehand, I felt decidedly less so afterwards, since when it comes down to it, I apparently really don't carry Josie that much or play with her that strenuously. I have to keep in mind that that's on purpose, though, to avoid overdoing it while pregnant, but it was still a bit eye-opening and made me a bit more committed to doing some physical activity every day. I'm back to doing yoga once a week and walking at least 20 minutes every day, so at least that's something.

I had a couple of days this week where I felt I maybe was going to get over my lingering illness, but now it looks like I'm coming down with something else since my nose is stuffed up again and throat is scratchy. I don't have anything new to say about the sleep situation, except I've had a couple of odd dreams (at least of the ones I remember): one that Ryan and I renewed our vows in a foreign country, and I wore my same wedding dress (ignoring the fact that, in real life, the boning is messed up so it was quite painful to wear at our reception, and therefore it currently lives in a trash bag in our attic) and we were over an hour late to our own vow renewal. The second I don't actually remember the dream itself, but it apparently involved tickling Ryan's face in real life... which is when I woke up, a split-second before he did, and he was decidedly not pleased about the situation.

Below are my comparison pics for the week. For consistency, I've continued to suck in my belly for each picture, although since I'd gotten quite a few comments this week that I'm really starting to show more, I included one where I'm not sucking in too :)

      

22 Weeks

This week we got our doula situation straightened out, and also picked up the majority of Josie's furniture so we could start moving her out of her crib. We ended up going with a doula who works at the birth center, since the price (significantly less than pretty much every other doula we looked at) and experience (much more than pretty much every other doula we looked at in our price range) was right, and she obviously works very closely with my midwives already, so that's a big added bonus as well.

We finally completely cleared out the nursery this week... and then promptly filled it with furniture odds and ends. Since we decided to have new baby take over Josie's crib rather than convert the crib to a full size bed for Josie, it seemed to make the most sense to just switch all of Josie's furniture over to the new baby and get new furniture for Josie. Ryan went out to Ikea this week and got pretty much everything (just missing a dresser and nightlight), so we've been putting together her furniture the last few days, and now have a mishmash of old and new furniture in her room and the new baby's until we can get everything set up again in Josie's room.

As far as cleaning out the nursery, unfortunately it's not because we had actually organized/purged stuff, but more that I just moved all of the remaining office stuff up to the guest room, where it now lies in big piles waiting for me to sort through it again. Due to the government shutdown, I've had to take a day off each week for the last two weeks, and although the shutdown is over now, I still have to take two more days within the next month. So during the first two days, I tackled painting the garage (now a much more pink version of the peach I thought I was painting it - oops), and then for the next two days off I'll most likely be working on the guest room and some other miscellaneous painting to hopefully finally finish off those projects.

I've talked about basically everything else but the new baby since there isn't much to update on the actual baby itself :) New baby is still kicking me in somewhat uncomfortable ways, and seems to like (or possibly hate) loud music since it was kicking a lot when we went to see a band play last night. I'm still slightly sick, cranky, and having troubles sleeping - although I have had much better luck staying on my left side sleeping last week, so maybe there's actually a chance I can get used to it and get some better sleep.

     

21 Weeks

This week I had what should be the last ultrasound for this pregnancy: the anatomy scan.  All body parts were accounted for, and new baby's sex remains a secret for everyone but the ultrasound tech :) New baby is apparently measuring spot-on for its gestational age (which is odd, because it seemed a lot of the individual measurements were measuring almost a week ahead), and weighed about 14oz. I have an anterior placenta again, meaning that the placenta is between the baby and my stomach, so that probably explains why I'm not feeling as much movement as new baby is producing. There was also briefly a concern that the placenta was too low, although it had risen back up by time the doctor checked again, so they said it was nothing to worry about.

Below are images from the ultrasound, including some 3-D ones :)

My ongoing illness(es) continued this week, with a sore throat, stuffed up nose, and fatigue. On top of my other sleep issues lately, now I'm also waking up multiple times a night to get a drink of water to try to get rid of the incessant tickle in my throat. My appetite is also up somewhat this week - it's still not the all-encompassing, gnawing hunger it could be, but usually in the morning, I'm almost immediately hungry again after eating. I recently discovered how wonderful (saltless) pretzels are dipped in peanut butter, so at least that's a fun addition to my snack rotation :)

After getting a bit stressed with several ongoing "projects" related to getting ready for new baby, without any coming to completion the last few weeks, we finally made some good progress. We wanted to have Josie in her new school within the next month or two so she would be fully settled in a few months before new baby came, so we toured five preschools for Josie and ended up liking the second-to-last one (thank goodness), and she is now enrolled to start there next month. We also did some more research into daycare options for new baby, but still have a lot to figure out there: do we get an au pair or nanny, use the same in-home daycare as Josie is going to, find a new one that's closer, etc. Our awesome doula from Josie's birth also just confirmed that she is no longer taking clients, so I'm working on researching doulas too and should be contacting some next week. We also made some decisions on Josie's new furniture, so we're hoping to get that in the next week or so, move her current furniture to new baby's nursery, then get Josie's room set up (and fully child-proofed) for her to start transitioning out of the crib.

      

September

The two big items for Josie last month were talking and pooping. Josie has been sitting on the potty for a while most nights for weeks and weeks now, without anything to show for it. Last weekend, we decided to let her go pantsless for a while instead, and she actually used the potty a couple of times here, and then again at daycare! This is obviously super exciting news, especially since I had already given up on potty training her before the new baby comes, since I've read that that should happen about 3 months before any major change to lessen the chances of regression. That would put us at her being fully potty trained by around Thanksgiving, which just seemed really unlikely, so I just gave up early. And although it still does seem pretty unlikely, but at least we're making some progress now!

Besides that, just lots more talking for this month. She now says "oh, great", but in an encouraging way rather than sarcastically - it's very supportive as she interjects that in any conversation now :) Josie also figured out her name, and while she's still "Yosie" to herself a lot of the time, she's starting to say her name correctly sometimes too. She got into a funny conversation with her giraffe where she would point to herself and yell "Yosie", then to the giraffe and yell "giraffe!", so at least she's worked that out now ;) She also will ask for "daddy's tablet", and once we unlock it for her (luckily she hasn't figured that out yet), she'll click on her Daniel Tiger app and will be content for as long as we let her play it.
We also taught her the ever-important skill of how to cheers, which led to Josie saying "Cheers, mommy, cheers, cheers, cheers, mommy", etc., until I finally realized she was saying "cheers" instead of "cheese." So then we cheers-ed and she called me out on my glass being empty - she apparently knows the rules already. She's also doing better with saying some short sentences on her own, like when I opened the car door for her and she saw some bags in her car seat, and she said "Oh no! Stuff in car seat!" She also laid her head against the table the other day and then closed her eyes, so we (reasonably) asked her if she was sleeping on the table. I feel like we perhaps got a glimpse of her teenage years as she then mumbled something under her breath and then said "Not sleeping on table" before stalking off.

Josie is also recognizing songs more - she still doesn't sing along with them, but she recited enough of "No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" that I was able to recognize it, and she also loves (and will occasionally recite/act out) "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." She also still yells "yay!" after every song she hears, which is funny in part since she doesn't even realize how much that has helped out her cause. I would prefer to listen to my own music on the way home each evening, but if we play her music and I sing along with it, then she yells "yay!" and occasionally claps too - and with those accolades coming my way, it makes her music much more appealing ;)

Josie suddenly started demonstrating that her memory is developing too. Just one day after Ryan and I switched cars, she remembered whose car was whose, and that she needed to go to the opposite side of my car than usual to get in her car seat. We also were playing up in the guest room, and she ran to a corner, yelled "corner!" and then pointed me to another corner... even though we hadn't played that particular game in months.

[Testing out the new car]

Amidst all this developmental excitement, Josie continues to be a 2-year-old with intense emotions too... in other words, she still has plenty of overly dramatic meltdowns. This month, she cried about "my paper towel" when we took a paper towel roll away from her so she could get ready for bed. This, after she had hugged it and cleaned with it for maybe 20 minutes already. She also wouldn't finish her dinner the other night since she got so upset at me that I wouldn't give her all of my dinner. Yes, she appears to love artichokes and avocados as much as I do ;)

[Not the most exciting video ever of someone eating an artichoke, but it was apparently the only video I took this month so I had to post it]

Miscellaneous cuteness:

 

[After I asked her to smile, she apparently turned into her cousin Taylor's doppelganger]

  
[Josie's method of using her stool seems a bit counter-productive] 

20 Weeks

I'm 20 weeks along today, which means this pregnancy is halfway done! ...of course, that's assuming this baby isn't a week late like Josie was ;)

I still have a cold this week, but it seems to be clearing up a bit - just in time for Josie to come down with another cold. If I'm lucky, maybe she'll give it back to me once I'm better. Sleep is still a miserable exercise for me right now. I still hate my pregnancy pillow, although I was able to actually keep it in place all night once in the last week (every other night I chucked it out of bed in my sleep), and I then woke up in the morning with a clenched (and sore) jaw and a backache. So not sleeping on my back is not going well, nor is sleeping in general. My mood has really deteriorated the last couple of weeks when my sleep got even worse, in case that's not obvious.

New baby continues to be quite active - I still can't feel kicking more than a handful of times a day, but it was reassuring last week when I was at my midwife appointment and we were able to hear the baby moving around on the doppler even though I wasn't feeling a thing at the time. But this week I was able to feel new baby kicking from the outside again, and the feisty little thing apparently thought my belt was too tight since it kept kicking right where my belt was until I loosened it.

I also had a couple Braxton-Hicks contractions this week, which completely freaked me out. I only had them during the last week of my pregnancy with Josie (and didn't even realize what they were at the time since they only lasted about 10 seconds each), and somehow forgot all about them this time around. So I was convinced I was going into labor, since I had a pretty active day (long walk, moving stuff around), and so I drank a bottle of water and laid down for an hour or so. A few quick minutes of internet research later (and no further contractions), and I realized what was going on and was able to calm down.

Here are my comparison pictures for this week... and since the 19-week to 20-week comparison looks essentially the same, I threw in my 20-week picture from Josie too.