19, 20, and 21 weeks

Weeks 6-16 felt like they'd last FOREVER, and now time is flying by. Partly because it's been a BUSY month of travel and houseguests (in a 1 month span, I went to KC solo with the kids twice and we also hosted friends + their kids for several days between those trips), partly because, well, I don't know. I have a really long list of stuff to get done before baby arrives, and I feel like I'm running out of time!

The good news is, I don't really have a lot of *anything* to report, good or bad. I mostly feel like myself again, but I'm feeling baby move multiple times a day now. We also reached the halfway point, which feels like a HUGE milestone. And most importantly, our level 2 scan with the perinatologist came back COMPLETELY clear. The subchorionic hemorrhage is nowhere to be seen, and baby looks perfect and adorable. 

Funny story, about halfway through the ultrasound the sonographer and I realized we'd both worked for the same perinatology team at KU Med! It's hard to believe I was there 9 YEARS ago. Whew! But she just left KC within the last year. It was a funny, full-circle moment. They are an incredibly thorough and meticulous team, so I trust we got the most thorough ultrasound possible.

Between the ultrasound and the 20 week mark, it all just feels really REAL and I'm starting to get so excited to meet this baby.

18 weeks: It's a boy!

I'm writing this on the day I "switch over" to 19 weeks. This week, I started to feel movement much more frequently, and we also took the kids to the doctor's office for my monthly visit where a quick bedside ultrasound told them... it's a boy! We are so excited to meet him and have all our kids in our arms.

This week, my anxiety has gone up a lot. But it's less worry about specific things like loss, and more physical anxiety, which I'm also all-too-familiar with. So I'm committing to keeping a few promises to myself to reduce stress and improve sleep. Basically, this involves moving more after a (necessarily) sedentary few months.

I'm aiming to walk for 30 minutes in the morning after my quick stretches and PT exercises. I've been listening to music and perfecting my pregnancy playlist to reflect the miracle, joy, and anticipation we feel in this season. I also started Barre3 workouts again online this week. I thinks it's feasible to do one 10 minute upper body workout + one 10 minute lower body workout + one 15-30 minute prenatal full-body workout each week. I'll try some new workouts this week and next, and then stick with the same 3 workouts on rotation for 6 weeks to really build strength and endurance back up. It also just makes me breathe deeper (which I don't do when I'm anxious) and will increase my blood flow to keep my varicose veins from aching. And THAT plan will take me right into the 3rd trimester! I'll be bigger then, but also the weather will be maybe getting a little cooler, so I'm hopeful that I will be able to stay active. It's been kind of fun to be pregnant in such different seasons this time around.

Finally, just because I need to commit to this somewhere, I need to act my way back into journaling before bed. I really enjoyed this for a while, and I know it helps my sleep. But I don't wanna. Yet I need to. So tonight I will clear my desk off and just... begin again. No theme, no pressure, just a 5 minute timer and my journal.

Oh! Also, if this baby follows my previous pattern, today basically brings us to the halfway point of this pregnancy, which is REALLY hard to believe. The first trimester lasted FOR-EV-ER and the second is flying by. I'm REALLY trying to focus on one day at a time and not let the pressure of catching up from the first and nesting for the third overwhelm me right here in the sweet second tri.

Weeks 16 and 17

I'm currently 18 weeks and change and I can't believe the difference a few weeks can make! Sometimes I just feel NORMAL for a few minutes. My belly isn't hugely heavy yet, and now that my SI joint pain has improved thanks to taping my diastasis while the top of the uterus migrates past my weak umbilical area... now that I don't feel like vomiting all the time and I only *sometimes* gag when I blow my nose... now that I feel kind of normal tired and not deep-down-in-my-bones fatigued... it's easy to forget, for a moment, that I'm growing a baby. Then, of course, I stand up, or wait on houseguests hand and foot for 3 days, or spend too much time in the car, and I feel it. Physically and emotionally, I feel it.

I'm happy to be second-trimester pregnant this summer as opposed to hugely pregnant or freshly postpartum (as I'm accustomed to being in the summer), but it's pretty gross out there either way. This week, my primary symptoms are fatigue, mood swings, backne, and heat rash in my cleavage. It's super glamorous to type that out, by the way. About as glamorous as it all feels. All of those symptoms are exacerbated by, if not outright caused by, the dang humidity and the subsequent sweating. I'm doing my best to add salt and electrolytes to my water, or else to drink juice or coconut water or fruit popsicles, but... the sweating and the itching. It's too much and I'm grumpy and then exhausted if I am outside for too long.

However, this past week I accidentally felt the baby kick from the outside. Given that I really only feel movement a few times a day, and it's still pretty subtle, I was shocked. But also really happy. With all the loss around me and in the world right now, there's been a lot of tension in the already but not yet that pregnancy entails. I'm VERY anxious for my appointment tomorrow. We are bringing the kids to see the baby on the ultrasound, but I can't quite kick that niggling worry: what if it's not a happy ultrasound?! But I currently have no reason to believe it wouldn't be, so we are proceeding forward. We have the BIG ultrasound with the high-risk OB in two weeks, and I'm more worried about that one being emotional, so Ross and I will be sans big kids then.

Also, I realized yesterday that I might be freaking out because I'm not magically MAKING USE of this time. Am I just going to be more tired and depleted 20+ weeks from now when I'm huge and then postpartum? I feel like I need to catch up on 18 weeks of life I've missed out on, as well as nest for the next 20 weeks before I run out of energy again. I have to remember I feel drastically better in comparison, but I still feel 36 years old and pregnant with two small children in the house. I've been struggling with 1-2 hours of middle-of-the-night insomnia every night, too, and it's taking a toll.

Time to be accountable to the fact that self-care will require a little bit more than JUST intensive rest like the first trimester did!