20 Weeks

This is my first "real" update of this pregnancy. We knew that we wanted to wait as long as possible to announce the pregnancy, even to our families. I believe we kept it completely a secret until around 9 weeks, when we didn't have much choice but to announce it to my family. We were at Lake Powell and my family couldn't figure out why I didn't want to tube or do anything fun. We kept it from Lance's family a few weeks longer. They were kind enough to watch Will overnight for our Anniversary. So I made Will a shirt that said "Big Brother in Training" and had that be his pjs for the night. They weren't quite sure if it was a hand-me-down shirt or an announcement.

Lance and I always knew we wanted our kids to be pretty close in age, like less than 2 years apart. Suddenly the time came where we needed to consider it if we wanted them to be that close. Fortunately things worked out and they will be right around 22 months apart.

This pregnancy has been decent so far. I've had a lot of rough moments, but I know many people have it way worse than me, so I consider myself very lucky.

Sickness hit me about 6-7 weeks. I had an upset stomach and felt really nauseous every day for the first few hours of the day, then a few hours before bedtime. I had to eat immediately upon waking up, plus constantly throughout the day. I would tell people that I had 3-4 breakfasts each morning. I think they thought I was joking, but I defintely wasn't. I seriously had to eat several small bowls of cereal to feel half decent. It seemed impossible not to gain weight when I had to eat constantly. And gain weight I have.

Like with Will, one of the only things that seemed to really help settle my stomach was lunch meat. I know most pregnant women avoid it like the plague, but I just couldn't do it. My doctor had said it wasn't that big of a deal and the chances of it causing problems were very low. If he'd said not to eat it, I would've; however, I'm very glad he didn't say that.

Pregnancy is exhausting. I don't remember being this tired with Will. Though back then, if I wanted a nap, I could take one any time I wanted. It is much more difficult being pregnant when you have a toddler. It doesn't matter if you are feeling sick or tired, you have to be there for your child. I've gone from going to bed at midnight, to sometimes crashing around 9pm. And that includes a nap during the day. I think it's driving Lance crazy. He doesn't understand why I am so tired all the time. I'll admit, it's super frustrating. There have been times I couldn't even go on a walk with them because I didn't think I could move off of the couch.

I have tried to keep working out, but because of the tiredness, it just isn't as practical to do as often as I would like. I still managed to run the TOU half marathon when I was 14 weeks along. You may have read about it here.

The biggest difference between this pregnany and my last is the constant headaches. They started about the 2nd trimester and were relentless. There was a week where I had about 4-6 migranes. For me, that is unheard of. I usually only get 2-3 migraines PER YEAR! So to have that many really worried me, especially as my "migraines" have some scary symptoms like numbness and not being able to think/speak clearly. So my doctor recommended I go see a neurologist, just to be safe. Things seemed to be normal there and my headaches were diagnosed as migraines. We ruled out doing any CT scans because of price and the likelihood that they would point to migraines as well. My sister was having similar issues with her pregancy and at one point ended up in the ER. She was told sometimes crazy hormones with girls can cause it to happen more frequently. That was when I first really started to think I was having a girl.


But then during our doctor appointments, the heart rate was always in the 130's. There is the idea that girls typically tend to have really fast heartrates and boys have slower. Will's was much faster than this, so I started to doubt and wonder if maybe it was indeed a boy.

I wont try to deny it, I really wanted a girl. For a long time, I refused to even think of another boy, and at that point I would've been pretty upset if it had been. A big part of that is that my sister and I have grown up talking about raising little girls together, and she just barely had a little girl. I also just really felt strongly that this one was a girl, but I wasn't sure if that was mostly wishful thinking or mother's intuition. But then as our ultrasound date got closer and closer, my attitude really started to change. I'm not sure if it was dreams or hearing other horror stories, but I started getting extremely worried that something was wrong. I became fine with the idea that we could have another boy and even started to suspect that it was. I just prayed that we would hear a hearbeat during our ultrasound.

My stomach was in knots as we were about to begin. But the first thing the ultrasound tech pointed out was the beating heart. Huge sigh of relief. After that, I really didn't care about much else. My baby was alive and healthy and it didn't matter whether it was a boy or a girl.

Things that are different:
-Much more nauseous
-Constant headaches
-Breaking out more (skin issues)
-Tenderness in chest

Things that are similar:
-Needing to eat constantly
-Exhausted all the time
-Still haven't felt any movement
-Haven't thrown up (related to pregnancy.

The ultrasound went really well and we were told we are having a healthy baby girl. I don't think I've seen Lance smile that big, though I'm not sure if he was happy about the news or just happy because he knew how much it would make me happy. We were told she weighed about 10oz, which is right about average. Looking back on my 20 week post with Will, Will was estimated to be 14oz at this point. So it'll be interesting to see the size comparison when they are actually born.

 She was basically curled into a ball the whole time, with her elbows to her feet.

 No sign of any boy parts.

We had a really hard time getting a clear picture of her face.

We are really excited about our little girl and we can't wait to meet her. I'm hoping at least part of the second half will pass quickly since it is filled with so many holidays. We are pretty sure we have a name picked out, but we aren't ready to share it quite yet.