20 Weeks

How Far Along? 20 weeks

How I'm Feeling Overall: Physically, I feel really good. Emotionally, I'm a little overwhelmed right now. We have a lot going on and a lot to worry about... so worry I do. I come from a long line of worriers.

How your baby's growing: Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now. He's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel — the length of a banana. (For the first 20 weeks, when a baby's legs are curled up against his torso and hard to measure, measurements are taken from the top of his head to his bottom — the "crown to rump" measurement. After 20 weeks, he's measured from head to toe.)
He's swallowing more these days, which is good practice for his digestive system. He's also producing meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion. This gooey substance will accumulate in his bowels, and you'll see it in his first soiled diaper (some babies pass meconium in the womb or during delivery).

Movement? Yes, definite little nudges and pokes. At the ultrasound, we found out that the placenta is along the back wall of my uterus, which explains why I have been able to feel movement so early this time. (If the placenta is in the front, it "muffles" a lot of the movement at first.)

Food Cravings/Aversions? Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary, that is.

Symptoms: Starting to feel lightheaded a lot like I normally do during this point in pregnancy. My blood pressure always dips really low during the middle 3 months (like as low as 90/50) and this makes me feel dizzy and weak at times, but that's better than going the other way!

Maternity Clothes? Yup.... on the bottom half. I don't fit into any pre-pregnancy pants anymore, but I am still wearing my longer, pre-pregnancy shirts. I save the big "tents" for the end!

Stretch Marks? I'm taking this question out next time. Seriously, who wants to know about my stretch marks???

Weight gain? 10lbs. According to the records I've kept on all my other pregnancies, this is about par for the course for me, if not slightly under. Let's hope I am able to keep it that way!

Sleep? I'm sleeping good yet, although I keep waking up in the night, lying slightly on my belly and worry that I'm squishing the poor kid!

Best Moment of the Week? Going to our ultrasound!! We took the girls with us and they thought it was pretty cool. Ryan and I had decided NOT to find out the gender, but the whole time the girls kept begging us to find out. Daddy totally caved at the end -- his girls have him wrapped around their little fingers I think! ;) -- and so we DO know if we are having a boy or girl.

Gender? Well, we told a few key people, but I'm not sure how much we are going to spread the news. I'm thinking we'll wait and see and if news starts leaking out, I will post it here, but for now, I'm keeping you all in suspense. (Hey, SOMEBODY has to have a surprise!)

What I'm looking forward to? Spring. It will feel so good to get outside with the kids and get all of us some fresh air.

Emotions? Like I said, I'm fairly stressed out right now. This poor baby is going to be a high-strung little peanut, poor thing!!  We will be moving in about a month, so that has my mind occupied and Ryan hasn't been working many hours lately, so we're a little stressed about that. We just keep praying that God will provide for us as He has in the past, but of course the fear and worry is never far behind.

I'm hoping to get some pics of the ultrasound scanned in soon and when I do, I will post them. We have some really good ones!!