24 Week Update

A 24-week old fetus

Everyone says that the 2nd trimester is better than the 1st, but I'm not sure that's true for everyone. And I'm sure if I had been sick during the 1st trimester, then I would agree with the masses. But, since I had a very easy 1st trimester, the 2nd one doesn't really seem that much better or harder, just different.

Slightly more energy: I have more energy than I did during the 1st trimester, but I'm still not running on even close to 100%. I hear that the 3rd trimester, you get really tired again... great.

Backaches, backaches, backaches: Oh my. This is probably the worst and most prominent symptom I've had to date. Not a day goes by that I don't have back pain. It makes me feel like an old woman. I'm so used to sitting cross legged in chairs, and sitting on the floor for hours, and I just can't do that anymore. Even sitting normally on the couch gets painful without a pillow in the small of my back. And church is starting to feel really long in those uncomfortable benches and chairs. Though, on the upside, at least Eric is more prone to give me backrubs now :)

Lack of control of my own bladder: Umm... yeah. Let's just say it ain't pretty if I my bladder is full and I sneeze. I've learned to run at the first sign of a sneeze. On a particularly bad day, Eric bought me "What to Expect When You're Expecting" to cheer me up, and because one of the ladies in the movie had the same problem. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to, so many good laughs.

Acid reflux: I've heard many women complain of heartburn, and luckily I haven't had heartburn once... yet. But I have had my fair share of unpleasant acid reflux. It happens with no matter what I eat or drink, even water.

Swollen fingers: If I don’t drink enough water or exercise in the sun my fingers swell, bad. And it’s extremely uncomfortable. Luckily I usely work out in an air conditioned gym, and drink plenty of water, but if I haven’t, I can quickly tell. I'm just hoping I can keep the swelling down to a minimum... I really don't want to have to take my wedding ring off or get cankles...shudder.


Disappearing belly button: I knew this, I expected this, but it sure is weird when it starts happening to you. It’s only just begun, and I’m sure I’ll end with an “outie” before we’re done, but can I just say that I have a huge aversion to outies? I think they are abnormal and downright creepy, (I really hope baby girl doesn't get one!) so I’ll be glad to have my old belly button back.


Aching feet: When I spend a lot of time on my feet, which with a desk job is uncommon for me, but when I do, my feet ache, a lot. Last week when I picked raspberries all morning and spent the mid afternoon making jam, my feet were in serious need of a massage.

Lots of kicking :) She has been kicking a lot lately. It took me awhile to really feel her kicks (around 19 weeks) and when I did they felt kind of like cramps and kind of like gas and kind of like something really weird. So, even though it was so neat to feel her alive and kicking up a storm in there, it wasn’t my favorite thing. As they have gotten stronger and more frequent they feel less like cramps or gas and more like a baby kicking—which is still so weird and amazing.

Eric has yet to feel her kick, she’ll only kick a few times in a row and by the time he his hand in position, she’s done. She really likes to kick mid-morning too, so Eric has fewer chances to feel her kick. I’m hoping this is a good sign, that she doesn’t wake up and start having a party when I’m trying to sleep, and is instead awake when I’m awake.

And today for the first time, I not only felt her move, but SAW her move. Boy was that weird, and it was only a little tremor! I’m a little terrified for the day when I see my whole stomach move with her! Definitely having half-vampire baby nightmares here (thank you Twilight...not)!

I'm well on the way to getting things ready for baby girl's debut in 16 weeks. 

1.I'm in the middle of crocheting 2 baby blankets (1 for her room, 1 for her baby blessing)
2. I'm half way done with the bird mobile. 
3. Her crib is painted white and ready to be set up.
4. I have fabric to make her crib skirt, binkie clips, hair bows, and throw pillows for the armchair (that we have yet to get).

But I'm in no rush for her to get here just yet. She can stay nice and cozy inside and that's just fine with me. Though by 34 weeks I'm sure I'll be wishing she would come early.

Gender Reveal

The fateful Thursday finally dawned and I could not have been more excited! Uncharacteristically I woke up before the alarm, and cheerfully said (shouted) in Eric's face, "Today's the day! Aren't you sooo excited?!?" And I then I laid back down and feel back asleep until after the alarm went off a few times. Eric was exhausted, but I tried to rub off some of my enthusiasm onto Eric (he was excited, just not quite at that decibel that early in the morning). I felt like a kid on Christmas, and I honestly don't think I've been that excited since our wedding day.

Unfortunately I had to go to work until 2:00. So I spent the morning failing to focus on work and my articles and talking to my co-worker Madi about how excited I was.

Finally, 2 o'clock came and I was outta there! I raced home to pick up Eric. Eric, unlike me, didn't want to leave right away and be early for our 3:00 appointment. Eric got out otter pops and made me eat one. Bad choice, it takes me forever to eat those. So, after eating half of it I made him finish it so we could leave.

After months and weeks of waiting, we were finally in the exam room with the ultrasound tech. She asked us if we wanted to know the gender. To which, Eric replied, "Oh, yes. She can hardly stand it."

"So, the sooner you can tell us, the better," I added.

I came prepared with OJ (which Eric made fun of me for), just in case the baby decided to be shy and uncooperative. But, fortunately our baby wanted us to know their gender, because the very first shot the tech got of our baby was a clear shot of the babies bum.

The tech said, "Oh they're obviously not shy... (Eric and I look at each other and both think, 'Oh that must mean it's a boy')... it's clearly a girl!"

Eric and both try to disguise our surprise and say, "Oh that's great!"

For quite some time I had been pretty certain that it would be a boy. I'm not really sure why. Maybe, it's because I knew Eric wanted a boy so badly, and I thought the idea of seeing Eric with a baby boy would be just too adorable. Maybe it's because my sister Heather just had a baby boy a few months ago, and I've fallen in love with him and his adorableness. Or maybe I just didn't think I would get have a girl the 1st time around, just because I wanted one... Either way, I didn't think it was going to be a girl.

The tech showed us the three lines that indicate that she is a girl.

The tech asked us if we had names picked out and we said that we just had a long list of possibilities, but nothing beyond that. (Though we had two boy names, first and middle, picked out and ready... lol).

The tech continued to show us some cool shots of our little girl.

After we had gotten the clear "girl" shot, she decided it was time to be more ladylike and crossed her ankles for most of the time.

She gave us a thumbs up :)

She kept waving one of her little arms at us, so it took about 5 tries to get a good measurement and picture.

The tech even gave us some 3D shots. I didn't know that was an option, so that was pretty neat. Unfortunately the placenta kept getting in the way, so her face is always partially hidden. Oh well, I had no delusions of knowing exactly what she looked like from an ultrasound--that big reveal will just have to wait 'til January.

After the tech finished, we waited about 20 minutes for the doctor to come in and tell us the baby is healthy and looks great... don't you love what you wait around in a doctor's to hear? Lol, but we sure are glad that she is doing great. Then he told us something that I never imagined to come from a child from my womb!

That our child at 20 weeks weighed 15.6 oz (according to babycenter.com a 20 week baby weighs 10.5 oz.) and was in the 61st percentile! Um, never in my life have been in the 61st percentile for anything height or weight related! My family are small people! This just goes to show that the "other half" gets some say in the matter too ;)

My sister laughed out loud and said, "Oh man, that's gonna hurt!" when she heard... heres to hoping that the other 20 weeks will give our baby time to even out. I'm really not planning on a big baby. And since I was only 7 lbs 4 oz and Eric  7 lbs 2 oz, I really think we have good chances for a normally sized baby.

After the ultrasound we went to Walmart to buy a baby outfit to get excited about our baby! Though it was a pretty poor selection, we did find one outfit. The whole night I just kept looking at it. Baby clothes are so cute and tiny! I probably refolded it about 20 times.

That night I made gender reveal cupcakes with this recipe (they turned out delicious--though I just used a box for the cupcakes and followed the recipe for the filling and frosting).

On Friday we drove down to Utah for the weekend and met my family in Bountiful to do the big gender reveal (We planned to go shopping for gender specific things right afterwards).

Before we let them eat the cupcakes we asked everyone to guess what they thought it would be. Everyone except for Aleksa guessed boy, apparently we weren't the only ones! Well you can see everyone's reaction for yourselves! I think this picture is priceless!

We were hoping to do a similar thing with Eric's family in Nampa, but unfortunately do do bakery's only baking in the morning, his family would have had to wait until Saturday to find out, and we decided they had waited long enough so we told them on Friday too. They are so excited, especially his mom.

Though we were a little surprised, we are so excited to be having a little girl! Bring on the bows, shoes and pink!

Stay tuned for more pictures to come--we left our camera in a friends car.