(Granted this is an evening picture, which makes the bump bigger, but I still feel like it's grown a lot this week! Definitely more obvious now...)
Thankfulness: Obvious, I am thankful that our little baby keeps growing! I'm also incredibly thankful that Ed is home. He was out in California on business since Thursday and, while I'm doing much better at being home alone, I am still so glad to have him back!
How Far Along? 15 weeks! This week has so flown by. I feel like I just hit 14 weeks and I'm already moving on. I'm loving that things are seeming to move more quickly.
Eating? I've started trying to add back in some of my off limits foods, to fairly good success. I made a smoothie a few times for breakfast, which I hadn't touched since I was 6 weeks, and it made me sick, and am happy to say it sat pretty well. Of course, now the weather's changed, and it's a bit cold to have a smoothie every day, but it sure was nice to have a nice and healthy breakfast after what feels like a lifetime of toast. I may have eaten far too many pieces of candy with halloween, but I'm hoping to try to curb that soon :).
Exercise: I'm thinking I should actually recap the past week, which I didn't exactly do last time. So, from here on out, I'll be consistent! I didn't quite make my goal of 4 days of activity this week, between some very long days of work and some nausea popping back up, but I did get 3 days, which I will take. The yoga and hike I mentioned last week, plus a short run/walk Thursday.
Best Moment? Our first Family Circle appointment. From here on out, our doctor appointments will be group appointments. Our first one was great! There were ten couples there, including a woman from my pre-natal yoga class. We started by introducing ourselves and then learning a bit about the practice, which really met all my expectations. Everything I had read about and hoped for in terms of care, especially during labor, seems to be routine with the "midwife model."
As soon as you head to the hospital, you call the midwife, and the one on call will meet you there. During labor, monitoring is intermittent, so you are free to move around as you want, and make use of the birthing ball, the tub, etc. And, after the labor, the baby is immediately placed on you for that first hour (barring any medical issues). All those newborn tests are either done from there or wait until that "golden hour" is over. If Ed's up for it, he can even catch the baby! That might be a little outside of our comfort zone, but pretty cool that that's an option :). In the meantime, we can call 24 hours a day if we have any concerns or issues, which is a far cry from my OB's advice to just go to the ER if there's a problem, since no one answers the phone after 4pm.
The rest of the appointment was mostly filled with learning how to do "tummy time." To help us feel ownership of the pregnancy experience (and I think for ease of having that many people there), you check your own vitals (blood pressure, weight, etc.) and then give the data to the midwife. Then, the partner uses the doppler to find the baby's heartrate. This was definitely the trickiest part, since our baby is still little and moves around a lot (and to be fair, they didn't model for Ed first, just sort of described what to do and gave him the doppler). After an increasingly stressful few minutes, the midwife showed up and jumped in. It took her another long 4 or 5 minutes (it could have been shorter, but it felt like forever) until she finally found our baby, curled low near my left hip, with a perfect heart rate of 154.
It was a great evening, and makes me very optimistic and happy about the rest of the pregnancy.
Milestones: Booking our anatomy scan! We'll be finding out if we're having a little boy or a little girl on December 2nd, in just a month. When I think about the baby, my first thought is always a girl, but I think that's more because it seems the most "likely" with a family of all girls. I honestly have no idea. When we get closer, it will be fun to go through the old wives tales and see what they predict.
Mommy Update: Things are certainly on the way up! This past week has been incredibly exhausting, as I was running a fundraiser at school, but that is thankfully over, and we made over $550 for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, a non-profit that benefits finding cures for childhood cancer. I'm feeling better and more like my old self, even feeling like a normal teacher again, which is huge. I still feel sick at least once a day, but not for nearly as much of the day as I used to. I really feel like my stomach has popped out more this week, which is starting to make me feel a bit self conscious in some of my clothing. I think I may pick up a few more new clothes so that I can transition out of the clothes that aren't really working any more. With every week, I'm feeling like this baby and pregnancy is more real, and I just feel so unbelievably lucky.
Baby Update:
Baby is fantastic (and growing a lot according to one of my students, who commented on how much it was growing this week...). It's proportions are becoming normal, with it's legs finally catching up with the rest of its body. It's also potentially hiccuping in there and continuing to move a lot. I keep imagining I can feel it move, but definitely can't be confident I'm feeling anything real. I'm okay pretending, though! Baby is practicing breathing with the amniotic fluid, which is helping to develop its lungs, and it can sense light through its eyelids. If we could peek inside, which might even be able to tell if it's a boy or a girl, but we'll have to wait on that one :).
Onward to Week 16!
Going to try a link up today with Kristen for Baby Talk Tuesday :)
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