We Are Having A Boy!
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| 19 weeks pregnant and my vertical bump is starting to fall forward. |
Josh and I are very excited to announce that we are having a son! Currently I am 23 weeks and 2 days already. Im extremely thankful that I've been blessed with such an effortless pregnancy that's nothing like the media portrayed. Maybe that is in part due to my prior lifestyle being so similar to that of a pregnant woman; severe GERD(acid reflux), ridiculous vivid dreams, peeing every half hour, eating every couple hours, craving foods, and waking up feeling famished were all just normal occurrences for me.
Cravings
I can't say that I had a lot of cravings, but more food aversions.
First Trimester: Mostly ate burgers and drank a ton of juice. The one thing I absolutely-had-to-have, woke-up-in-the-night-longing-for was Gatorade. I didn't want any vegetables(not even potatoes), sugary foods, or anything processed.
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| 21 Weeks and the Bump is here! (along with my messy counter LOL) |
Second Trimester: Last week I woke up craving brown sugar and maple syrup. I started liking the smell of milk (very strange for me) and eating SO MUCH DAIRY. I'm living of pizza, and still can't eat my veggies. I no longer can eat anything peanut-butter heavy or a lot of sweets, but I'm able to eat some.
The media really portrayed a "worst case scenario" of what could happen in pregnant life. I had so much to learn:
- Morning sickness. It only happens to roughly half of women and thankfully I'm not one of them (this pregnancy.) And even less than half of those who are ailed by it don't have it very often. I think my strict hobbit-like eating schedule preventing any nausea from becoming an issue.
- I was also expecting to be a basket-case emotionally. As a women who normally rarely cries, I was kind of looking forward to re-watching some sappy movies and letting those tears out. So far no crying at movies or commercials, but I've had one breakdown and that was at 3 weeks, my "I need to take a test because I'm scaring my husband" moment.
- As far as the extreme fatigue goes, I was really expecting that to be a result of lugging around the weight of the baby at the end of my pregnancy. It was here from the start. Who knew growing a human and their tiny organs would be so exhausting? I should've known
- I've actually noticed that I'm peeing less often than before - maybe that's due to water retention which is most definitely present but not at all problematic. Either way I'm glad that I've made it past my halfway mark without any of these three things being an issue for me.
- I also thought that I would start packing on the pounds immediately. My Dr. expects me to gain 30 pounds, I was up for the challenge since I've always struggled to gain weight. She then began to explain to those who gain 30 pounds and have an average size baby, only 7 lb's will be maternal fat gain. Here is a nifty chart on what gets heavier inside you during those 9 months that's similar to the chart my Dr gave me but much prettier. It's so weird to think that 4 lbs could be just an increased blood volume and another 4 lbs of water retention!
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| My Pregnant Hair on a "good" day |
At 23 weeks I have already gained 17 lbs and I think less than 5 lbs of that is fat. Mostly, I've gotten bigger around my entire torso. My ribs have expanded 4 inches (without any fatgain there) to make room for all my organs being squished upwards for my long-legged boy whom I've been carrying quite vertically and not very forward. The bigger my bump gets, the bigger my entire torso width gets evenly so it hardly looks like I'm getting more obviously pregnant, just a bigger normal person - but I have the measurements to prove it!
Although this is such a beautiful and easy experience, I have struggled with my new unruly hair texture and pretty dramatic fatigue. The no-more-shedding part of my hair change was fantastic, but it was very strange to have all this new growth at the same length about 4 inches have such a drastic texture difference than my hip-length hair. My hair is fine, and theres a good amount of it, and it's right in-between smooth/curly/wavy/with a tendency to poof making it fairly easy to straighten or curl with the right products. My pregnancy hair growth is thick, coarse, curly and very wayward. I had to use a 200ยบ different temperature on the top than the bottom when straightening. I basically ended up doing a topknot daily and securing these curious strays with a whole lot of gymnastic clips.
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| Can't wait to have my brain-power back! |
No amount of sleep was enough. After adding up the hours I spent eating and sleeping during my average first-trimester day, I had about 4 hours total of being awake. Not my most productive months. And those four short hours I had, I hilariously suffered from pregnancy brain. One time at my 3 month mark, I was scrolling through Facebook being jealous of everyones cute newborns thinking "I want a baby!" only to later remember that I have one on the way! Another time I almost prepared my oatmeal in my teacup and my tea in a square bowl. Luckily I caught on right before I began to pour out the hot water so I snapped a pic - because with pregnancy brain, you can't remember all of these funny moments.
Soon I will be outnumbered by the men in my life! It's going to be much different for me; I grew up in a household with 4 girls and one dude. A change I'll gladly embrace. Wether or not this ends up being our only son, I can't wait wait to meet him in March!
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