20-24 Weeks

Time is slowing down a lot. I feel like I am barely progressing, but I also can't believe I'm already 6 months pregnant. The past month has made things a bit more real though, now that my pregnancy is out in the open (made FB official Dec 2 after our 20 week ultrasound).

I'm feeling about the same. No interesting symptoms that I can think of other than back pain. Shortly after I started feeling baby kicks, I started to see and feel them from the outside. It's cool to look down and see my belly move. Now I'm starting to feel movement at all angles of my belly too, before they were mostly in the same spots. Appetite seems to be ramping up, too. Sleep seems to be more consistent. I only wake some nights instead of every night. I still have pregnancy brain. That may be made worse just because we've had a busy schedule lately, especially with the holidays. I'm looking forward to having some free time to chill out, catch up on housework, and actually cook. I'm not sure if it's nesting, or the new year, or just coincidence, but I'm much more motivated to do things.

I made our registries online a long time ago when I was home from my car accident. It should surprise no one that I check and fiddle with them daily. Our first official baby purchase of a video monitor was made last month (we had a bunch of points on our credit card to cash out and that was pretty much the only thing we needed. Yay for "free" stuff). Shortly after finding out the gender I started slowly ordering nursery items. I got cold feet on a few things and already made an exchange on something, but I'm liking how things are coming together finally. We have a crib assembled and crib sheets/curtains on standby. We haven't ordered new furniture for our master bedroom yet, but as soon as we get that settled our current furniture will move into the baby's room and we can start putting it all together. I'm starting to get anxious and antsy to get things settled in there - I just want to put everything in place already. I might as well buy stock in Pottery Barn before all is said and done.

My last day at work was on Monday Dec 22. It still hasn't sunk in, but I'm really happy. I had a few coworkers get me baby gifts, so we have our first baby blanket, set of onesies, and rattles. Christmas followed and we got some more gear. Our stroller and matching car seat attachment are ready to go and we have a wrap and little baby Bumbo-type seat, as well. We even got our first kids book, too. It's nice to have baby stuff around!

The holidays went pretty smoothly. I generally am not a fan of people being up in my business, but no one asked uncomfortable questions or was too nosy. I will comment at how surprised I am with people's reactions when I tell them we are keeping the gender a secret for now. I could probably dedicate an entire post to just this. A lot of people say "but how will people know what to buy you?" Like the only baby items one could possibly purchase for someone are blue or pink. It's like the concept of gender neutral necessities is foreign. I am smart enough to know that I will probably not have all kids of the same gender (I would never buy all pink/blue crap even if I did know we would have all boys/girls). Why would I buy a gender specific car seat, etc? That would be dumb. Do people not know that I am nothing if not practical?

Other than those comments, I'm also surprised at how much not knowing tortures people. I guess I have been on the other side of the fence before, but I don't consider myself to be that interesting. I don't think anyone is really losing sleep over not knowing if we will have a son or daughter. People have been having babies for centuries and only recently having the option to know the gender, I think we all will survive waiting a few extra months. I will admit it is kind of fun to have so much power, though sometimes people just need to calm down.

        20 weeks                                                        24 weeks

We are headed to Disney in just a few days and I'm thinking it's about the perfect time to be going on vacation. I'm feeling well and ready to get away for a bit. When we come back I have my next appointment - glucose testing and another ultrasound. Wish me luck!