Week 18

How far along?  18 Weeks

Total weight gain? About 8 pounds

Maternity clothes? Nope.

Stretch Marks? No.

Best moment this week? Finding out the gender and getting to see cute
pictures on the ultra sound.

Miss anything? You know, not really.

Movement? Yes! I am positive that I have felt some sort of flutterings. 

Food Cravings: Spicy buffalo wings. I want them 24 hours a day,

for any meal of the day. Always.

Anything making you sick or queasy? Mostly just oranges.

Worst symptom: The awkwardness of not being able to lay on my belly.

Labor signs: Still a ways off.

Belly button in or out? In.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or Moody most of the time? "More so happy probably," says my husband.

Looking forward to: Seeing my family and my cute new niece soon.

Sorry, this post is a little belated. It's been a hectic week. We moved from Hawaii on Monday night, got to Utah Tuesday morning and then left for Oklahoma this morning (Wednesday). This chilly weather is not being nice with my Hawaii wardrobe and Hawaiian adjusted temperatures.

On a side note, I have been feeling especially fat lately and that I just look large and not pregnant at all. But today a man in the airport congratulated me on my pregnancy! I look pregnant for legit!! I feel much better about life now.

My belly appears to have popped out just in time for our last Sunday at church before we moved. Everyone was coming up and congratulating me as they said goodbye. 

I still haven't bought any baby clothes since finding out that we're having a little baby girl. (With all the travelling and tight packing and whatnot). But I'm really excited to do so. I don't want to buy a ton of stuff until after our baby shower (when/if we have one) but I think it's a right of passage and makes the whole baby thing seem that much more real. As if all the vomiting, indigestion, food aversion and gaining weight weren't real enough. 

I guess it makes more sense to buy more baby stuff when we actually have an apartment. We're sort of homeless right now. But all in good time. I've got family to visit!

It's a....

We had our ultra sound early this morning and had the technician seal the gender in an envelope. It was SO hard not to look. The ultra sound was incredible! Our sweet baby actually looks like a baby now and not a blob. We saw it's little fist and little toes. I'm so grateful for technology that we could check for any problems and have some cute pictures of our little growing baby.

This evening, Chris' cousin and his photographer wife took our gender envelope and bought balloons for our awesome gender reveal photo shoot.

Since most of you have already scrolled down to the pictures, I'll just stop writing now and get to the good stuff.

and then I started crying...big alligator tears

I knew it was a girl! Chris was convinced it was a boy but he's still happy to have a little princess.

I have to give a huge thank you and shout out to our amazing photographer, Amanda from Campbell Photography (visit her website here). She did such a fantastic job. We're so thankful that she could be there to capture this special moment for us.

17 Weeks

How far along?  17 Weeks

Total weight gain? About 5 pounds

Maternity clothes? Nope.

Stretch Marks? No.

Best moment this week? My husband letting me leave work for a donut run

Miss anything? I miss not feeling bloated...which is basically how this feels.

Movement? I wish, but no.

Food Cravings: I had a random hankering for donuts on Wednesday. 

So I went and bought 5, and ate 4 of them. #fatty

Anything making you sick or queasy? Random things set me off. Today 

it was Christopher's potatoes (even though I ate the same thing yesterday).

Worst symptom: The awkwardness of not being able to lay on my belly.

Labor signs: Still a ways off.

Belly button in or out? In.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or Moody most of the time? "A little moody," says my husband Christopher.

Looking forward to: WE FIND OUT THE GENDER IN TWO DAYS!!!

Alright humans, the gender knowledge is fast approaching which means if you haven't already voted on what the gender will be..do it now!!! (Left side of the page at the top.) If you want me to know your vote so you can do a victory dance when you're right, gimme some comment love and let me know what you think it will be.

Little babylang is 6 inches this week, about the length of a grapefruit, and weighs about 5 oz. I'm so excited to see my little baby on the ultra sound again. If my research serves me right, it will actually look like a baby now (but the blob was cute).

So stay tuned because in just a few days I'll post an exciting gender reveal!

Week 16

(Bonus picture at the bottom)

How far along? 16 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: About 5 pounds

Maternity clothes? Not yet!

Stretch marks? Nope.

Best moment this week: "Hearing" the baby kick with the doppler

Miss anything: The clothes I love fitting properly. I might need to get 

some maternity clothes soon.

Movement: I think I feel "flutters" but I might be imagining them

Food cravings: Not especially.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Anything gross just sets me off.

Worst symptom: Backaches

Have you started to show yet: Just a little.

  Gender: I don't know yet, but we find out next week!!

Labor Signs: Not for a while yet.

  Belly Button in or out? In.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Mostly moody.

Looking forward to: Feeling the baby and finding out the gender so I can go SHOPPING!

Little baby is the size of an avocado this week! It's about 4.5 inches long (head to bum) and weighs about 3.5 oz. Baby is working hard to grow eyelashes and eyebrows and it's ears are developing so it can hear my voice!

And don't forget to vote on what you think the gender is, we find out next week!!!

BONUS!!! This is what happens when my husband takes pictures and I'm not ready for them...

Pregnancy Yoga

Photo courtesy North End Yoga

I've never really had a good body image. My best friends during those awkward stages of puberty and unfortunate weight gain were wonderfully, beautifully, jealousy-inducingly thin (you know who you are). So as vain as it is for me to admit this, one of my biggest concerns with getting pregnant has been the impending weight gain and subsequent weight loss.

Now I realize that I will gain weight. And by weight I mean there is another human inside me gaining it's own weight and becoming more humanly everyday. I have no problem with that. The fear and anxiety comes in gaining too much weight and not being able to lose it and forever being the person who just never went back to her normal self after pregnancy.

In order to overcome this, I am trying to make a strong effort to exercise (safely and moderately) and now that my morning sickness is basically gone (Hallelujah!) I am trying to do a little exercise. This usually consists of short walks/jogs through our neighborhood with my husband. I like to do 5 minutes walking, 5 minutes jogging, 5 walk, and 5 jog. It's short and I take the jog at a mind numbingly slow pace but it gets my blood flowing and I feel good about it. I find that after spending a month and half almost entirely in bed, I'm a little out of shape. The key to this pregnancy exercise stuff is to never work so hard that you can't carry on a conversation while exercising.

SO today we just took a 20 minute walk and I thought I'd try out some pregnancy yoga. I have the most amazing pregnancy app EVER called Pregnancy Companion. I paid to get the full version and it's got a ton of great features like a weight tracker, a way to make sure you're getting the right number of calories, a forum to ask doctors questions, a way to look and keep track of your favorite names, your status in pregnancy, a way to keep track of contractions (when that time comes) and a wellness section that shows pregnancy yoga as shown in the photo below.

So if you are in the market for a GREAT pregnancy app, I highly recommend this one. Anyway, these are the pregnancy yoga poses that I tried out today. It doesn't tell you how long to hold the poses which is kind of nice because I can just hold it however long feels good. I've done a little yoga before, so thankfully I already knew how these poses were supposed to work since there was no video to follow or anything. And I was able to choose my own music.

Some of the poses were a little more difficult than I remember, what with the being out of shape and all. But I feel really good. And it feels so good to be exercising again. My body is just so happy. I'm going to try really hard to keep up with this throughout my pregnancy and hopefully it will help me to A. not gain too much weight, B. get back into exercise easily after I have the baby, and C. make it through labor and delivery a little easier.

But in case you're into following a video with an instructor, just go ahead and search pregnancy yoga on youtube. There will be so many results that you won't know what to do with yourself. I'll try some of those out at some point.

Kicking

So I don't feel anything yet but we heard the kicking at the Dr. appt today!! She used one of those machines that they use for the heartbeat. But all we heard was a 'thump' every time it kicked. And boy was it kicking!

 Omg it was the coolest thing. The baby was like training for the World Cup or martial arts or something! Ahh! I can't even handle how excited I am to feel it move. THERE'S A BABY IN MY BELLY!!

And more excitement...we get to find out the gender in 2 weeks!!! BAHH!!!

Week 15

On our hike at the Pali Lookout

How far along? 15 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: About 4 pounds

Maternity clothes? Not yet!

Stretch marks? Nope.

Best moment this week: We'll talk to the doctor tomorrow about 

when we can see the gender!

Miss anything: Going an hour without having to pee.

Movement: Not that I can feel.

Food cravings: I don't know that I'm really craving anything, but I 

want cheese a lot (pretty normal)

Anything making you queasy or sick: Anything that looks dirty

Worst symptom: Frequent urination

Have you started to show yet: Just a little.

  Gender: I don't know yet.

Labor Signs: Thankfully no.

  Belly Button in or out? In.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or Moody most of the time: I'm pretty moody.

Looking forward to: Finding out the gender.

People keep commenting on how small I look which makes me sad because I want to start looking pregnant and not like I really like cake (which I do but people shouldn't be able to tell that easily).

Little baby is growing and growing though. It is the size of an apple, about 4 inches and 2.5 ounces. It can sense light (even though it's little eyelids are fused shut) and it's growing little tastebuds.

According to my pregnancy app I might start to feel movement within the next week!!! So excited to meet my little human!