week 21

banana baby!

average size: 10.5 inches, 12.7 oz.
what's going on with baby: "Baby gulps down several ounces of amniotic fluid every day, both for hydration and nutrition and to practice swallowing and digesting. And, these days, those taste buds actually work! Studies show that after birth, babies are most interested in tastes they've already experienced through amniotic fluid. Meaning, think about what you want your future child to eat as you prepare your own lunch."

that's really interesting! maybe i should reconsider our choice of home made tacos for dinner? nah. those still sound super good. i'll have roasted chicken and a salad for lunch though :)

not too much this week (especially compared to last week's excitement!), but we DID go to babies r us this past weekend for fun to look at all the baby stuff! and of course you know as soon as you walk in, they bombard you with this over-the-top cuteness:

they actually had even CUTER stuff than this, by FAO Schwartz, but i couldn't find any images online! i guess it doesn't matter anyway when these dresses are like 35-60 bucks EACH! yeesh! it was fun to walk around the store though and try some stuff out and see what we like/don't like in person. when we left, we both talked about how we can't wait for her to arrive! erik even said, "is she here yet???" hahaha...

other than that, this was a pretty boring week baby-wise! i'm still working on crocheting the rug for the nursery, and i thiiiiink i'm maybe halfway done now? not sure. i just know i'm not done, so i keep working and working on it. no weird cravings or anything lately. i'm feeling her wiggle around more lately though, and it's so cool :) i really love it, and can't wait for erik to be able to feel them too! 

just an easy-going pregnancy so far. can't complain! things have been wonderful. 

and here's a baby bump pic erik took of me from the front since i always take side photos every 4 weeks:

 bigger and bigger!

week 20

cantaloupe baby!

average size: 6.5 inches, 10.6 oz.

what's going on with baby: "Baby's digestive system is busy creating meconium (a tarry black substance made of swallowed amniotic fluid, digestive secretion and dead cells), which will fill the first diaper after birth. And, speaking of the diaper situation... baby's genitals are now fully formed!"

they sure are! we are having a GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so amazing!!!! today was seriously SO awesome. the technician goes over EVERYTHING when doing the ultrasound and it was so cool to see everything and hear what she was looking at! she measured her head, stomach, legs, arms, face, heart, kidneys...everything! and she said she is healthy in every way! wonderful news to hear :) 

our little girl was wiggling around and had her hands over her face practically the whole time! lol! sorry baby girl! we wanna see you!!! when the tech had to get a good shot of her face, she wasn't cooperating, and kept her hands over her face, so the tech pressed a little harder on my tummy to try to get her to move her hands/arms and she PUNCHED BACK at the technician!!! hahahahaha! but finally the tech was able to see (she was checking the face for things like a cleft lip) and everything looked good there too :) so happy!!! the tech also said "LONG LEGS!" when she measured them! and said she is overall 8.5"-9" from crown of the head to toes. here are a few more pics from the appointment:

arms/hands (hard to see the hands) with a "thumbs up" on the right hahaha 

feet! the photo on the right is easier to see than on the left 

another profile shot, but you cant see her face. she is facing down (you can see her head on the left, and her spine at the top)

face shot (right in the middle looking directly at the camera) where she...looks like a skeleton hahahaha 

we are so in love with her already!!! can't wait to meet her!

after my ultrasound, we had another appointment with my midwife because she likes to just meet up afterwards and go over things with us. since everything was healthy, it was a short meeting! but still nice to chat about what we saw. she also took the doppler out to listen to the heartbeat, but our little girl was hiding from it! it took her a long time to find it, and then once she did, it was a strong heartbeat, but it slowly got fainter sounding because baby was moving away from it hahaha...okay! sorry babe! enough intrusion for one day, right??? :)

one thing they did mention is that i have slight placenta previa which is when the placenta grows on the bottom part of the uterus, and *could* cover up the cervix (AKA: the way OUT for baby lol), but! this is a VERY common thing, and they said 90% of the time, the placenta moves up and out of the way by the time baby is ready to come out, so that's good! they like it to be at least 25mm away from the cervix and right now mine is at 15mm, so it's not covering it up, which is good, and they said it will probably move up and away like 90% of them do. if it doesn't move, then it just means a c-section has to happen, but i'd like to not have that if possible, of course! they scheduled another ultrasound for us to go to at 28 weeks (april 17th) to check up on its progress. hopefully it will have made progress away from the cervix. if not, they will check it again 4 weeks later. but we get to see our little girl again in 8 weeks, so that's pretty cool too!

so that was our wonderful and exciting visit! we are both over the MOON excited!!!! it feels more real when we can now say "she" or "her"! now i'm just anxious to hold her!!! oh! and here is the 20 week bump pic that i took:

halfway there!!!! cannot believe how fast this is going! 

week 19

mango baby!

average size: 6.0 inches, 8.5 oz.

what's going on with baby: "Vernix caseosa, a greasy white substance made of lanugo, oil and dead skin cells (yum) now coats baby's skin, shielding it from the amniotic fluid. (Picture yourself after a nine-month bath, and the need for protection makes sense.) You might actually get to see the vernix at birth, especially if baby is premature."

okay then! hahaha...

and a week from tomorrow we find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!! the big anatomy ultrasound! we'll find out more than just that though. they will scan pretty much all of baby's body to make sure everything is developing properly and measure some things too. really excited! and hopefully baby cooperates and doesn't have it's legs crossed so we can see if it's a boy or a girl!

and i think it's safe to say that i'm for sure feeling baby move now :) they are very light feelings, but every once in a while, i'll feel something different, and i dont think i've felt it before! so i'll go with baby haha...and every now and then i feel like a little "flick" in there, so maybe that's a kick? again, it's light, but it feels like a flick of a finger from inside my tummy haha...can't believe baby is 6 inches now though! that's also the size of a dollar bill! erik was so cute this week. out of no where, he came out of his office from studying and into the family room, crossed his arms in a cute pouty joking way and said, "I wanna feel the baby" hahaha...i told him he will eventually :) and reminded him that he might be okay with me feeling it before him when i'm the one PUSHING it out of me hahaha...

and i got my first weird random craving!!! runny egg over rice.

yep. that's right.

i have NEVER had this before. but out of no where i wanted it. instead of JUST having that, i decided to make katsudon, which is basically a rice bowl, with other veggies and fried pork, including the runny egg.

it really hit the spot :) YUM! actually, lately i've been hungry all the time! it's like my stomach is a black hole! i'll eat dinner, and 20 minutes later i'll still be hungry :( i'm trying to snack on healthy things like fruit though because i'm hoping to only gain the recommended 25-30 lbs. for the whole pregnancy. it's just hard when my stomach is growling all the time!

next week the blog will be updated on tuesday instead of monday because our ultrasound is on tuesday, so i figured that would be a more interesting post to do rather than waiting another week for it haha...can't wait to say "he" or "she" instead of "it" or "baby"! 

week 18

potato baby!

average size: 5.6 inches, 6.7 oz.

what's going on with baby: "Your fetus has become amazingly mobile (at least compared to you), passing the hours yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. And, baby's finally big enough that you'll be able to feel those movements soon."

i might, miiiiight be starting to feel baby. maybe. i feel little taps here and there, but sometimes i wonder if i'm just digesting something hahaha...could be baby though, i guess! still nothing definite though. and no "flutters" that i've heard people talk about. some say it feels like you swallowed a butterfly, and i definitely have not had that yet hahaha...

this week was sort of stressful towards the ends of it. we just found out on friday that there is lead paint on every single window in the house we are renting (there are about 20 windows), and they are all cracking/peeling terribly. this has me MORE than freaked out since we've been living here for a year and a half already.

i'm pretty worried because i've read so many things how this can be terrible for baby growing inside me if my levels are bad (and i guess us too, but mostly for unborn babies and children), and i just feel so terrible and guilty that i didnt think of this earlier! but mid last week, it crossed my mind, so i ordered some lead testers online, and bam. lead windows in every single room of the house, and they're all peeling. 

we even found lead dust upstairs in the baby room on the window sill, and what's strange is that we re-painted those windows when we re-did the room! so i'm not sure how lead dust is still happening (maybe from friction or something on the windows?), but it is, and i'm so upset by this.

we've told our landlords about this, and they feel absolutely awful about it. they are a married couple in their 60's, and this house has been in their family since it was built in 1832, so it's not your typical "rental home" where there is a property manager who owns a few properties. but, they feel SO bad, and they said they are ordering a lead inspector or something to come out here and test the whole house for lead, so that's good. i'm still worried about baby once it's born though since it will be on the ground crawling around, etc. 

also, the landlords said they re-did the house in 1956 with copper piping instead of lead piping for the water (thank goodness), and they re-painted everything in the 80's, but i guess they didnt do the windows? or, maybe they did, and they are just peeling badly again. either way, it's frustrating, and has me worried, so i've been researching things all weekend (probably not the BEST idea...some things just freak me out more) but i like to know what we're dealing with. 

on friday when we found out about all the lead paint, i immediately called the doctor's office to get blood work done. there is a blood test you can take to see your levels of lead in your blood, and i wanted to see how much damage (if any) this has taken on my body since we've been living here so long, and because i'm 4.5 months pregnant. well, after a long weekend of waiting to hear back, i called this morning, and my midwife says the blood test is not needed. she said i would have to be actually ingesting it for it to be a problem. "what about the dust though?" i asked. and i guess it's not a big deal (unless we are sanding and doing renovations, which we're not). i even asked, "what if it's in the water somehow?" and again, apparently not a big deal. 

erik said, "that's great news!!!" but i'm still weirded out by the whole thing because everything online says differently. and i know, i shouldn't just trust the internet, but i find it weird that the dust wouldn't be an issue for me, but i guess it's not. when we see my midwife in 2 weeks, i'll probably ask her about it in person to hear her explain it better because i only talked to the nurse today who was relaying the message. but yeah, really, my midwife's only concern was if we had kids already because she would want to get them tested for lead levels (to see if they ate any of the chips i guess). 

so, i guess what would be best is to re-paint all the windows so they have a nice, sturdy new coat of paint on them to keep all the lead paint from chipping because once our little one DOES come around, i don't want it to be a problem for them. we don't want to sand and re-paint because that would be much worse. gotta keep the dust to a minimum, and i don't want to create more of a problem by agitating the lead paint. another idea would be to put that plastic shrink wrap stuff on all the windows so all the dust and paint is contained.

so that was our "excitement" for this past week! haha...at least i do feel better now than i did over the weekend. anyone else happen to have experience with lead paint? let me know :)