Pregnancy Update: 24 Weeks

It's been awhile since I posted a pregnancy update, so here we go. I'm at the end of the 2nd trimester now, past the age of viability. My sister took this picture of me last week. I feel huge, but I know this is nothing compared to what's coming.

Weeks Pregnant: 24 weeks, 4 days. He's about the size of a large papaya or a football, depending on the website you ask. I had another ultrasound on the 15th, and you can definitely tell he's gotten bigger. The ultrasound technician said he weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, though I'm sure he's bigger by now. He's been really hungry lately.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If you can't tell, his heat is to the right side of the picture, in profile, looking up. He's big enough now that you can't see his whole body, just the head and torso. I go every four weeks for growth ultrasounds, just to make sure he's growing right. Nick had borderline growth restriction due to my RNY surgery, and they want to make sure that doesn't happen with this little boy. So far, so good. . . he's measuring 5 days ahead.
 
Weight: (From starting weight) +2 pounds, which actually means I gained back the six pounds I lost, plus I gained two more. That may or may not have something to do with all the girl scout cookies my husband ordered. My weight really varies quite a bit from day to day, so I try not to worry about it too much. I think the variance is because I drink so much water, 100 ounces or more a day.

Movement: Yup, though not nearly as much as I had with Nick. The doctor said that my placenta is in the front, and that's probably why I feel less movement. I do feel him squiggling around in there more each week. His head is up by my ribs, and his feet are pointing down and kicking my bladder. I think that's why my belly looks smaller now than it did just a few weeks ago--he was sideways and now he's vertical.

Exercise: I had my final physical therapy appointment (hopefully) last Wednesday, so I'm responsible for my own exercise now. I started out today with 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer, then topped it off with some heavy duty grocery shopping. We'll see how I do tomorrow. I hope I made up for the girl scout cookies I ate.

Cravings: Coffee. When we were up in Wisconsin over the weekend, we seriously considered driving the 30 mile round trip each morning to the nearest Starbucks. We decided against it, but I almost wept for joy when we finally stopped at a Starbucks on our way back home. That latte tasted so good! I was craving the girl scout cookies my husband bought (tagalongs) until they were all gone. Oh, and I've been drinking glasses of milk everyday. I usually have it in my cereal, oatmeal, and coffee, but the last month or so I crave straight glasses of milk.

Sleep: It is becoming more and more difficult to sleep. Being away from home didn't help, and my four pillow system of sleeping isn't working too well. I've been waking up with carpal tunnel pain from sleeping sideways on one or the other of my arms. Also, I keep rolling over on my belly in my sleep, and then it wakes me up because that is not comfortable.

Symptoms: The last few weeks I've had lots of lower back pain and headaches. The good news? My feet and legs are feeling much better. I'm not sure how I'd be if I had that to deal with, as well. Plus, I've had a runny nose and sore throat for the last week or so, and I'm not sure if I have a cold or if it's allergies. If it doesn't go away soon, I'm going to talk to my doctor, because it may be turning into a sinus infection. When I can't breathe through my nose at night, I wake up with a horrible sore throat and headache.


Mood: I think I've been doing okay. . . the second trimester is better in terms of horomones. I can't read anything bad in the newspaper about kids, though, or I get weepy.

Medical: I'm taking crazy amounts of vitamins: 1 liquigel prenatal vitamin, 2 Flintstones Complete Chewables, 3 chewable calcium supplements, 1sublingual B12, and 1 baby asprin. We'll see if all this prevents anemia and growth restriction. Not sure if this is medical, but my belly is itching like crazy as it grows.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good, and we're getting more excited about the baby coming. I've started looking on Ebay for deals on cute summer baby clothes. Nick was born in the winter, so all of the clothes I have from him are long-sleeved or have polar bears or reindeers on them. I have some sleepers I can reuse, but tons of fleece stuff that'll probably be too warm for this little guy.

Brooding Over a Snowy Future, or Roti Bread to the Rescue!

I like this picture of Nick and me, because we both have such brooding looks on our faces. It's because we had just learned about Snowpocolypse 2011, and we were perturbed about the potential for a three-hour car ride home tomorrow. Seriously, though, Greg and I took Nick to Flat Top Grill in downtown Naperville on Sunday. Nothing like a choose-your-own vegetables lunch to make you feel good about eating healthy.

See how happy Nick is to be eating broccoli? Next time I need to get him way more broccoli in his bowl, because it is his absolute favorite. He's even trying to eat with chopsticks, though he stabs more than anything. While we were there, Nick ate broccoli, brown rice, pork, edamame, green beans, mushrooms, carrots, and tofu. Not sure how the tofu got in there, but Nick ate even that. We were really surprised that his meal was free, so we let him pick whatever he wanted to put on top of the rice. We've never done that before--we always just let him pick from our plates. But we figured this was a good time to let him choose his own toppings, and he really liked pointing to the things he wanted. My boy chose nearly everything.

I had been craving their roti bread for quite awhile, and I had two pieces with my lunch. I wish now that I would've requested more. Even reheated, it is delicious. Aren't pregnancy cravings weird? I guess it's a good thing that I was craving roti bread and stir fry; there are far worse things this baby could've been demanding.

Do you want to know the best part? Dessert. It was just perfect, not too sweet, just the right mix of crunch and melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

Here's the description of the dessert, from their website:

"Cinnamon Fresh Fruit Roti:


Our very own roti prata bread rolled in cinnamon sugar, stuffed with seasonal fresh fruit in a crème anglaise sauce. Topped with cherry orange glaze and mint leaves paired with french vanilla ice cream and house made whipped cream."

I do believe that I think about food way, way more when I'm pregnant. (Yes, I did indeed notice that I did two posts in a row about food. It's my blog. I can write about what I want. Lately, I want to write about food.)

I've even been awake in the middle of the night (after one of my many trips to the bathroom), fantasizing about the food I could eat the next day. The positive side is that I crave many healthy things, in addition to the naughty comfort foods.

A Pregnant Woman Walks into a Chocolate Festival. . .

. . . and spends way too much money on delicious chocolate treats. I believe I bought three cupcakes, a giant dark chocolate covered strawberry, a bunch of chocolate covered pretzels, and a turtle. Now, some of this was for my sister-in-law's birthday, but let's just say that I indulged my cravings as well. In the picture below, he was pointing to the giant candies hanging from the ceiling. The whole school was decorated for the occasion.

Nick got to try chocolate milk for the first time, because they were handing out free samples. He liked it. (Are you surprised? I wasn't.)



Note the glazed look on his face. That's probably due to all of the nice samples he got to eat. My favorite sample was a piece of dark chocolate that just melted in my mouth. It was really, really expensive, or I would have bought some. Yum. Greg and I decided that we need to take Nick to more events like this one. It truly made his weekend. (I'm not going to lie. The chocolate samples kinda made my weekend, too.)

The DuPage Children's Museum was there and they had giant tinker toys for kids to play with. Nick liked building with them for a little while, then he saw the bouncy house, and off he ran.

I'm pretty sure we'll be taking Nick to this festival again next year.