Hey, I'm Still Pregnant

It's been a lot (a LOT) of weeks since I updated on the ol' pregnancy, and if I'm not blogging it, I'm not writing it down anywhere else either. Oops. I feel like I owe it to myself and Baby X to write down a little something here and there for us to look back on and see how this pregnancy went, but I have been pretty lackadaisical about that. Sorry, Baby X.


Want me to really sum this pregnancy up in a nutshell? After not taking a belly shot for over 5 weeks, I then had to go through the trash in my e-mail to find the last update I got from babycenter -- that's how I knew how many weeks I am pregnant. That's got to be some sort of record for parental pregnancy negligence, right?


Well, babycenter told me I am 27 weeks pregnant, and here's how that looks:

I had to go with a cell phone picture too. This child is ABUSED. I am still a little blown away at how much bigger I was with Josephine. My doctors keep telling me to calm the heck down, but last time I was already bigger than this by the time I was 20 weeks. No joke. Here's the evidence:

And, not to get all TMI on you (but I totally am, so skip this sentence if you don't want to find out), but my breasts are few cup sizes smaller than they were when I was pregnant with Josie, so that throws off all the comparisons on belly size. What? I use my boobs as a comparison point, like, "my belly is finally past my boobs!" Don't pretend you don't do that with belly shots.


However, by all accounts, this baby is growing like a champ and is exactly on track according to her last ultrasound. I'm not as worried about it as I used to be, but it's still weird, right? Everyone told me to expect to get bigger faster with the second one, so it was really hard to not assume the worst when I didn't.


I also thought for a short period that this baby might be more mellow than her sister was in utero, because her little kicks stayed little kicks for much longer than Josie's did. Josie went from the "is there a butterfly under my skin?" phase to the "this kid is kicking so hard I am bent over in pain" phase in about TWO DAYS. That was definitely one of the reasons that my first pregnancy felt so damn long -- because it felt like she was trying to kill me from the inside out, all day, every day, for at least 20 weeks. 


Baby X lasted a little longer with the "I'm a tiny and adorable baby" kicks, and she has gotten stronger, that's for sure, but thankfully she's not trying to kill me yet. What makes her just as big of a stinker as her sister is that I am 99% sure she is playing mind games with me. With Josie, when she started kicking, she never stopped for ONE SECOND until she was born. I kept reading those "what to do if your baby hasn't moved for more than an hour" tips, and I was like That HAPPENS? This Baby X, however, will stay still JUST long enough to freak me out, make me chug cold water, poke and prod, beg her to move, and then she will have a dance party for a few hours, like "What? I was in here the whole time. I just didn't feel like letting you know." SCAMP. 


Other than that, she's a pretty good little tenant. As far as symptoms, I feel pretty lucky this time around. There is definitely something very wrong with my lower back, like, I wouldn't be surprised if my tailbone were shattered and little pieces were floating around in there, scraping against each other. I have had a few of those "I threw my back out!" moments like on TV where the person can't move and screams for help. Adorable. Also, as soon as the heat kicked in over here (I live in a magical place where is can and DOES go from 40 degrees to 80 degrees in one day), I started having to watch my ankles. If it's really hot and I'm on my feet for a while, I swell pretty quickly. I've always had very poor circulation, so that doesn't help anything. But my blood pressure is great, so it's not that. Oh, and the four-a-day gushing nosebleeds are charming, but there are about a million worse things that could be happening at this point, so really, it's back pain, swollen ankles, and nosebleeds. I can handle that.


We had one or two scary moments when she was just a little pea-sized nugget, but we did with Josie too, so it's nice that things are relatively simple these days. It's not like it's so amazing that I forget I'm pregnant or anything, but I think I'm as close as I can get to that, so I am pretty pleased. The third trimester is just around the corner, so I might change my tune soon. We shall see.


Maybe the biggest news, however? There is a possibility that Jeremy and I have a name. We're definitely keeping it a secret again this time, but I told him a name I couldn't get out of my head and a few days later, he said he couldn't get it out of his head either. That is definitely encouraging.


All in all, Baby X = a pretty awesome lady.