28 Weeks

My belly is now the size that I imagined it would get when I thought of getting pregnant. The fact that it will continue to get bigger amazes me. I often will turn to my husband and say: whoa! look at this! it's huge! baby's BIG! and he alternates between: whoa! that is a big belly! and you still have a long way to go. To which, I sigh, and try to wrap my brain around the concept of getting even bigger. As it is, the belly bands on my clothes don't go all the way to the top anymore. They are sliding downward as I grow quickly outward. My belly button has started revealing it's insides, and, as Ruthie said, it's like your belly button is winking at me!

The baby is now THREE POUNDS! She has grown about a pound in the past two weeks. I'm officially in the third trimester by all existing standards (it's different depending on where you check) so now my email notices are all about actually taking care of a CHILD. Ahhhh! A human! A Little one!

Well, I'm not ready to go there yet, so back to pregnancy.

I've taken to buying only nursing bras at this point so they will last me past April. I now have three that fit, thank goodness, because alternating between two felt sad. My breasts look nothing like they did about seven months ago. And all across my body you can see my blood vessels more and more as my blood volume keeps increasing. I feel like a flesh-colored jelly fish. I started getting skin tags, little tiny ones, on my neck. Syd said they go away after you have the baby. Pregnancy is a whole lot of weird!

Now that I have purchased (and borrowed) hundreds of dollars worth of maternity clothes, I am now committed to keeping any future pregnancies in the winter months. Overall, I'm happy that I'm a third trimester in the winter preggers, but navigating the icy streets and sidewalks when my balance is already so compromised has been frustrating and scary. I slipped on to my butt once, very slowly, but it was enough to turn me right back into my house instead of trekking to the subway for work. I got permission to work from home that day, fortunately, and it was a productive work day for me but it was scary and annoying feeling trapped at home with an icy world out there waiting for me.

My body is now stretching in new, getting ready for superbig belly and delivery kind of ways. There's a pinched stretch I feel going from my pelvis into my thighs that I only really get to fully stretch when I do prenatal yoga on Sundays. My Braxton Hicks contractions started too. The uterus contracts all over to exercise and prepare for labor. I experienced the first one at the gym, and I just froze. It felt very strange, like someone inserted metal armor over my belly. Like the tightest muscle you can consciously feel your body flex, and you have no control over letting it relax. That same morning, I had several BH contractions and I got a bit worried that the baby was coming. But, alas, no. Thank goodness. I hear that I'll just know when they are real contractions. What that means I have no idea, but I have faith that I'll just know like everyone else seems to know.

We put together a baby registry and I've done a lot of reading about what we'll actually need when the baby arrives. I'm not sure I'll know how to use it all, but I'm learning. Sydney lent me the book Baby Bargains which has been a complete godsend. It has reviews and grades of items, and explains how things work, differences between products, and tells you what crap you just won't actually use. Sydney is also always happy to demonstrate! I love it when she's like, Hey, just watch me pump. You'll learn it too. She has outfitted herself into baby carriers and slings for the first time just for the sake of my curiosity. I love it! I want to dress her in all of her slings and carriers and take pictures.

We are starting a big painting project in our house very shortly, as soon as we get the new stacked washer and dryer installed on our second floor. The baby's room will be a very light, sweet pea of a color called Everlasting Peach. I love the name of the color even.

And now to the star of the show...Little. I went to my biweekly ultrasound at CHOP yesterday. The baby looks great! Now that her diaphragm is more fully developed, they are more able to see that the cyst in her chest does herniate the diaphragm at its esophageal aperture (hole that the esophagus goes through to meet up with the stomach). They are not concerned because it's still just following the esophagus and it has no effect on her lower organs. They explained that diaphragms develop via flaps that grow toward the middle of the abdomen from the sides of fetuses bodies. I'm getting a lot more detailed lessons about fetus anatomy than I had expected! Once again, the docs and nurses crowded around the sonogram screen (they also have one mounted to the ceiling that I get to watch all for myself) and checked out Little. I met a new doctor, and he said that he's learning from our baby. He reiterated that while they've seen everything it seems at CHOP, they haven't seen this before. He said that they were happy that she is keeping things interesting but not too interesting. My husband and I are happy that docs and nurses are learning from her, we like watching the learning process, and we like the idea of contributing to better care for other babies in the future. They said she looks very healthy, and everything is just great. I'm starting to picture myself holding her. I already feel such intense love for her, it's hard to imagine what that will feel like when I'm actually holding her. I cannot wait. Well, I can, but not tooooo long.

Oh yes, and she's a Year of the Rabbit baby. I bet she heard or felt the Chinese New Year fireworks from our bedroom the other night because she went into overdrive overnight and kept me awake for hours.