This week can be summarized as follows, pregnant food-benders, visits with friends, and a baby-visiting bender. Let's start with the belly picture in our hometown Snowpocalypse (2 feet of snow) and baby stats.
24 weeks + 4 days
Milestones: Lots of people felt the baby kick this week including Janice, Sarah, Brian, and Brady. The kicks are stronger and more frequent, and he especially likes to kick anywhere I have tight clothing or my seatbelt, which I usually move out of the way for him, or my ribs which I have not yet figured out how to move.
For about a month now I've been feeling the baby roll or somersault when I get in the shower. I don't know how I managed to leave it off the blog considering it feels really weird. The strength of the rolls has increased and I have started to look forward to his acrobatics at shower time.
When I first thought I felt the baby I thought it felt less like a kick or punch and more like a feel from the inside. This week that's become pronounced. Sometimes I feel a hand or foot dragging along the inside. It's super weird.
Also, supposedly this week, his lungs are developing the internal respiratory branches as well as cells that produce a substance that will help his air sacs inflate once he gets outside.
What I miss the most: Reaching the floor. I'm already only 5 feet tall, so I can only reach up to five and half feet high. Now suddenly I can't reach things lower than two feet from the ground. This means that the entire universe of things I can reach are in a small 3.5 feet span.
Craving: I drink milk. That's the main food I consume. Sometimes I also crave ice cream, cookies, or salty things. New Year's Day I had to have french toast or people might have gotten hurt.
Anti-craving: Apple juice because it consistently gives me acid reflux. Food without sugar or salt.
Symptoms: I might have a cold. I hope I do. Because if I don't, I have the most horrible symptom yet. It's a permanent stuffy-nose-alternating-to-runny-nose situation. I would prefer acid reflux or even throwing up. Not breathing sucks. But don't worry, there's no need to choose! I still have acid reflux and left knee pain as well.
Baby-size: Ear of corn
Weight gain: 20+?
Other stuff-- We got stuck on the Cape for a few extra days and saw Janice and Darren on Monday. We went to Friendlies and I went on a preggo-bender of cheese waffle fries and mint-chocolate-chip-milkshake. Only when I snapped out of the food daze did it occur to me that the fries and cheese were probably loaded with the chemicals I've been trying so hard to avoid. Mommy-fail. Tuesday we visited the Soward family and their new super-chilled out baby, Oliver. We spent little more than 24 hours at home before heading out again to visit the Grave's preemie, Connor, who recently came home. He was deliciously small like a brand-new newborn at 8 pounds. We spent a quiet New Year's Eve with some of my good friends. New Year's Day began with me ordering breakfast for 2-3 people and eating it all myself, and ended with vegging on Brady's couch in Philly.
Kevin with his buddy Oliver
Me with my buddy Connor
