20 Weeks

20 weeks! You know what this means?

It means we're halfway to meeting our little burst of sunshine.

Halfway to having a daughter.

Halfway to solo showers and trips to the gym. Halfway to fewer diet restrictions, to sleeping on my back again, and to Easter Sunday attire being an event in itself again.

These days, we're working on ways to increase our income and get into new living arrangements. We're trying not to buy every cute baby thing we find. We are trying, quite unsuccessfully, to get a good night's sleep before August.

I can already tell I'm going to miss this when it's over. I feel like Superwoman, being the host for this miraculous thing, experiencing it firsthand. This fall, if I feel a "kick" in my belly, it will probably just be gas, and if that's not depressing, I don't know what is. Granted, I still have 20 weeks to change my mind and beg for an empty uterus, but screw you, future self! This is awesome!

She still moves like crazy. She seems to have adopted a "late to bed, late to rise" lifestyle, and I think I can handle that for now.

20 weeks down. Here's to 20 more, filled with sun & fun & good health & good vibes.

Girl!

Yaaaaay!

Little Baby Straily #1 is a girl!

Many of you may know that Justin was on Team Boy, but how upset could you possibly be when you learn who your first baby is? You can't be upset, and he can't even pretend to be.

I only thought he had turned all fierce protector before. He's already bracing himself for boyfriends and makeup and expensive prom dresses and "Great, just what we need... a daughter with my butt." ...In the ultrasound, her little tush did look just like his. It's pretty clear to me that she has his face, too, so at this point I'm just hoping she'll have my eyes? my brilliant personality? something? anything?

I may have promised him, like, 50 boys after this girl. May have.

Remember my last post when I said how active this baby is already? Multiply that by 10 and that's what life is like now. It's getting strong enough where I don't have to be trying to feel her move. She distracts me from tasks on the daily. (More foreshadowing, probably.) AND, for the first time, I saw her moving FROM THE OUTSIDE OF MY STOMACH, like there's actually something in there, living and breathing (sort of) and peeing (gross, right?) and moving.

Active and happy. Stretching all the time and, based on the ultrasounds, training to be the athletic/hiccuping champion.

I have been saying from the beginning that this baby will be a burst of sunshine, a ray of light everywhere she goes. When I woke up on the ultrasound day on Monday and checked my Bible app for the verse of the day, it was this:

"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." John 1:9

 I should say that this verse refers to Jesus, and I'm certainly not suggesting that my kid is Jesus. But how rad is it that, on the day we find out who our baby is, we get this verse that mirrors how we feel about our active little ball of sunshine?

She's perfectly healthy, and is right on track with her growth. Now we've just gotta watch and make sure she doesn't secretly become some 10 pound monstrosity and bust out of my stomach all horror movie style.

Mini Bump (I Actually Have One Now)

It's not officially spring yet, but Justin and I started some much needed spring cleaning yesterday. Our dog, Drey, loves it when we clean. He tries to attack the broom, but abandons that effort rather quickly when he discovers the interesting pile that the broom creates. "Cool! I had no idea that all this stuff was here!" The vacuum, however, is his sworn enemy and he has apparent orders to attack on sight.

We have a very playful dog, and I think that may be to prepare us for a playful baby. It's gotten to the point where I just have to lay back and give my little belly a poke and it's like a pitter-pat party in there. The baby is only big enough for me to feel it moving, but not big enough yet for Justin to feel it or for it to cause me any pain. Haha. (Though, based on our size, I'm sure the day is coming.)

Speaking of size, I'm at 17 weeks and two days, though I don't think I look quite that far along. I started getting worried that something was wrong, so I did some research. Apparently, a long torso like mine is the cause, and I'll likely not ever look quite as far along as I am. This news was a little disappointing, but comforting in that it means I don't necessarily have an underdeveloped baby. BUT! Also apparently, I will probably be able to avoid a lot of heartburn, back pain, and general discomfort when sitting or sleeping in the later months. I'm holding onto the hope that these are true for me. I mean, a bump is kind of like a badge of honor, especially considering all the crap you have to endure. Without that... pregnancy can kinda suck.

But let's not pretend like I've had it rough. The allergy attack nearly killed me, many times, over the last 3ish weeks, but then everything froze again for a second, and here I am, alive and almost cough-free. Yay! I'm constantly tired, but I figure this is the standard of living now, so I don't bring it up much. No parent wants to hear an almost-parent talk about how tired they are. They either roll their eyes or they laugh, or they cry because they've been tired for years.

Maybe being awake for so many hours a day has made time move slower than the garbage truck that just passed by should've been going, because somehow we still haven't gotten to the ultrasound where we'll find out who's cookin' in there. We should know in a couple of weeks (or less) i.e. A MILLION YEARS. If it's a boy, I suppose that's a good thing, because we started reconsidering our choice for a boy name, and THAT was stressful. Basically, it needs to be a girl. The next baby can be a boy.

Got that, little one? Be a girl so the next occupant in there can be a boy.

PHEW. Glad we got that sorted out.

The Curse

There's this thing that pregnant women do. New moms do it, too. Not all of them, but enough of them that this is actually a thing that's been studied.

When you're pregnant, your whole body is changing. Let's not even address the bloating and the growing belly. You feel nauseous when you think that should be long behind you. You get allergies for the first time in your life. You have to cut a bunch of food out of your diet, and you have to be extra aware of the foods you do eat, just in case you can't have those either.

Maybe you never had a sense of smell because your jaw wasn't in the right place and it actually prevented you from having a sense of smell until after you had jaw surgery. But by that time it didn't matter because you'd already lived 18 and a half years without one, so you never learned to rely on it. And at 23, you still can't walk into a room and know what's just been cooking like everyone else can, and it's weird to you that others can. And then you find yourself pregnant, smelling things you still can't identify but you just can't ignore because the scent is filling up your nose and mouth and lungs and head, and you can barely tell if it's a good scent or a bad scent because it's strong enough to just be bad regardless.

There are so many things on the What Happens To Your Body When You're Pregnant list that it would be a much shorter list if it just had the things that don't change.

Things That Don't Change When You're Pregnant:
1. Your name.
2. ...Your age.
3. ?

See? Much shorter.

SO, it only makes sense that a woman (or a not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman woman like me) would want to maintain a sense of control over her body and her life when all of it changes forever.

There's this thing that pregnant women do. New moms do it, too. Not all of them, but enough of them that I'm worried I'll be one of them.

They cut their hair. They chop it off. I don't want to do that.

Sure, some days I do. Some days, I'd love to have a short style. Maybe even for a couple of days. But that third day... The third day is the killer. I'm done with the short hair thing and I'm ready for the long hair thing. PROBLEM IS, the obvious. I'm not rich and famous and I don't have a team of people ready to make my hair look long when it's not.

I'll dye it. I'll dye it red or ombre or blue or something and lust over bangs I'll never get. But I won't cut it. I can't! I just can't.

None of this would be an issue if I didn't already want to change my hair.

In all of the crazy, I may feel a bit like I've lost control. I need something I can rely on to feel like myself, right?

RIGHT?