22 Weeks

Once upon a time Craig and I were newlyweds, and I promised him that no matter how hard he tried he would never, ever get me to wear a pair of overalls.

All it took was a Target 75% off rack and a new found hate for things constricting my waist, and he won. Again. He always does. They were about four dollars, and he thinks I'm so cute in them. I think I look like a grandma but at least I'm comfortable. Now all I need is for it to become acceptable to not wear pants or underwear of any kind. Then I will be truly happy.

I'm 22 and a half weeks already. Thursdays are the official switch over day for what week I'm on, but I don't usually count it until the following Sunday. Baby dates confuse me anyway. Anything that tells me I was pregnant two weeks before I actually was can't be that trustworthy. Everyone else seems to go with it though, so it must be good enough for me too.

I can't believe how fast it's going. It's still so unbelievably mild, I'm still so comfortable and besides the expanding waistline and the tiny human being kicking my insides I hardly feel any different. I'm surprised by how small my tummy still is, she's almost a foot long in there! I'm so pleased by how little weight I've gained, I thought I'd be gargantuan by now but it seems I still have some non-waddling time left. Because of my lack of height/area to distribute new pounds my doctor recommended paying close attention to weight gain and making sure it only happens as it's needed to keep me comfortable for as long as possible and it's working out so far. I can't take any real credit, I eat all the time and I eat whatever I want and I eat a lot of it. I just LOVE food right now. It'll catch up. But for now I'm ten pounds heavier than my super low diet weight I hit right when I got pregnant, but less than three pounds heavier than my "normal" weight that I had just a two weeks before that. If I only gain about a pound a week from here on out I'll be right on track for the recommended 25ish pounds by the time we hit the end. Sounds like a ton though, right? I was shocked to hear that for a healthy pregnancy I would need to gain at least 25 pounds. It's not like it's just 25 pounds of fattage though, as I was very relieved to learn, some of it will be baby, some of it will be placenta + water weight, some of it is the extra ten gallons of blood pumping through my veins nowadays. Fun fact, I can take my pulse ANYWHERE on my body now. I just press a finger down somewhere, on a thigh, side, toe, nose, and there it is, BUMBUMBUMBUM. I feel like a machine. A baby growing machine. RAWR.

Planning for a baby girl has been such a magical experience these last couple weeks. It's completely different than expecting a mister, a lady on the way is a whole new game. I feel like my brain is going to explode with excitement for all the cute little girl things out there in the world. I haven't put away the boyish onsies, some of them, like batman, will easily be worn anyway and the others can be used at home. Sometimes a baby just needs something to keep them from being naked, right? She'll spit up on everything she's going to wear regardless of how girly it is or isn't. And I won't even be upset, laundry is SO MUCH FUN now with little person clothes all over the place. I love it, it makes me giddy.

Our supply of little lady clothes has grown so much already! My coworker Jackie, who always wanted girls, got me a whole bag of little onsies for 25 cents a piece from a garage sale. I LOVE that! These are a few of my favorites, the tiny newborn ones. Craig loves the little "daddy's girl" number. I hope she's small enough to wear teeny tiny newborn clothes when she comes out to see us. I always imagine babies as starting out a bit bigger than they really do and then when I see a brand new one I'm always blown away by how liiiittle they are. It usually makes me giddy with joy but lately it absolutely terrifies me. How am I supposed to take care of something that small without breaking her to pieces? How does anybody! It must work out okay most of the time, I think it's safe to guess that human beings have handled having babies just fine up until now, yeah? I'm still counting heavily on the package of motherly instincts I'm due to receive. You know, the package they hand to you just before you give birth filled with all the parenting skills you need and a book with all the mom secrets ever. They still have those, right? Right?

I love this little lady, our lemon squirt. She kicks me all time, I can feel her move constantly. Sometimes if I lay back and to the side a little the bulk of her will shift across my tummy and then my almost flat belly button will all the sudden bulge out. It's the craziest thing to watch! Craig can feel her sometimes but not always, it's tricky to time the "OKAYNOWFEEEEELHER!" just right, it seems like she likes to kick every three seconds for two minutes and then decides to stop right when he puts his hand there. Little stinker. So for when she's not moving hard enough to feel, Craig has started putting his ear to my tummy instead and listening to her little moves, he says he can hear her "sloshing" in there. You know how when you listen to a baby-less stomach you can hear those popping sounds of digestion? He says this is more of a whoosh of water. Sloshing. She sloshes. I love it. I want to listen too, but I can't bend that way anymore, I got this big ol' belly in the way.

She's so special to me. We love saying "she." It's becoming so real. Sometimes we just look at each other completely stunned because we are having a BABY and we're going to be PARENTS! Craig is thrilled to be having a daughter. They're already partners in crime, my tummy and husband team up against me and I'm losing even more disputes than I did before. Sometimes she's on my side though, when it's in her best interests. Like earlier when there were nine halloween oreos and Craig got four and me and baby got five. She way knows how to make things work for her. She's already too smart for us.

I should tell you all about her name sometime, and where it came from, and how much we love it. That probably deserves its own blog post. I need as many excuses to take pictures of my belly as I can get. You know what else you should be excited for? My belly button is on the verge of exploding. You know you want to see it. You do. Admit it. You probably don't want to touch it though, it feels unearthly. It made Craig shudder. It's that bad. But it has it's uses; if you ever get sick of belly button lint then just get pregnant! Seriously, it works. Your belly button will have no where left to contain any lint. For that priceless piece of advice and any sort of messed up mental images that came with it, you are so welcome.