A baby story [Part II]: Weeks 22 + 23

Week 22: Baby’s the length of a spaghetti squash

Things have been a bit slow-going in the baby department due to the holidays. The only thing that has not slowed down (and in fact has sped up like CRAZY!) is how BIG this baby girl is getting! My belly has gr-o-o-o-wn by the minute, it seems like. The unfortunate thing is that because of the hectic holidays, I not only forgot to take a belly photo this week…but the following week as well! All I can say is, looking back at my belly photos from weeks 22 and 23 with Sirena’s pregnancy compared to now, it looks like I’m 4-6 weeks ahead of schedule with the baby belly now, haha!

We think we’ve decided what to do with the baby in terms of sleeping arrangements which is a pretty big deal. Some people have asked if the girls are going to share a room and although that’s the plan eventually, it’ll be a while. Here’s the plan as of today (goodness knows how things change when babies enter the scene so this may all go straight out the window!):

• The first 3-4 months, baby girl will be in our room in the co-sleeper. We’re going to buy a changing table/dresser (so Sirena will keep her dresser as is) for our room and a comfy and good quality glider/recliner for our room as well.
• After the transition out of our room, we’ll move her into a space in our office with basically just the co-sleeper (set up like a crib) and her changing table/dresser. This will probably be until she’s 18+ months old.
• When she’s sleeping through the night, we’ll transition her to share Sirena’s current room with her. The room will basically be only for sleeping and getting dressed. All of their books and toys will be transitioned to our current office which will eventually be half office/half playroom.

One really exciting piece of news is that this week…Sirena felt the baby kick! Her reaction? “Whoa.” 😉

Belly shot!

No photo this week, oops!

Week 23: Baby’s the size of a large mango

We started week 23 off with a prenatal appointment and I’m grateful after our scare at week 21 that everything is looking just dandy with the little miss. She’s measuring just right and after the midwife looked at our u/s photos from a few weeks ago she determined that the due date is right on time (with Sirena’s pregnancy, her due date was pushed back two days at around this time). At our next appointment in a couple of weeks will be the oh-so-exciting glucose screening. I’m anxious to find out what the results are because I was glucose intolerant during Sirena’s pregnancy and had to basically follow a diet for someone with gestational diabetes (to prevent developing it because I was borderline). The midwife says that their test only determines yes or no, so there will be no grey area–if I’m a certain level I’ll be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, there won’t be any diagnosis for glucose intolerance. Here’s hoping for the best!

This week the major discomforts of pregnancy really started to get to me. Walking just up and around the block for me can be painful for my lower back and I have to slow waaay down. Thinking back to my pregnancy with Sirena where I was hiking one week before she was born, it frustrates the heck out of me that this early on I can barely get up and walk around the block. The other major discomfort has been crazy insomnia in the middle of the night. There was a string of 5 nights in a row this week where I’d wake up somewhere between 1-3 in the morning and not be able to get back to sleep for at least 2 hours, I’d just be wide awake lying there. Blech.

One question that a lot of people ask me is if we’ve chosen a name yet. We’ve got a small list of names that we keep tossing around that we like a lot but we just haven’t settled on the one yet. The fact that I knew Sirena’s name when I was in college makes it feel so weird that now here we are like so many other people trying to decide a name just months away from having her. I’m happy to know that we’ve decided on a middle name (can’t reveal it quite yet, though!) so that at least helps when trying to come up with a first name and hearing how they sound together. I’m hoping we’ll have a full name decided on by the end of this 6th month of pregnancy, but we’ll see!

Belly shot!

No photo this week, oops!

Other pregnancy updates:

• Total weight gained so far: 2.5 pounds
  
• Fun baby developments: Her face is fully formed right now and just needs some fat to fill it out, she weighs just a little over a pound, and she’s actively listening in to what Mama is saying as well as the loud noises out in the world (Lola barking, for one).