Pregnancy update - half way there!

How far along: 20 weeks 5 days!

Development: According to The Bump, baby is the size of a large banana. He is learning how to swallow/digest by drinking amniotic fluid every day. What I eat affects how the amniotic fluid tastes, and studies show that when babies taste certain foods/flavors in utero, they are more likely to eat those foods as toddlers. Knowing this inspires me to be sure to eat my fruits/vegetables every day!

Symptoms: Current symptoms include exhaustion, headaches, and constipation. Symptoms-wise, this is the best I have felt yet. My first trimester was rough (lots of nausea, food aversions, headaches, body aches, fatigue, spotting, etc. etc. etc. Basically, I felt like I had the flu for 2 months straight.). I had a lot of very intense headaches during the first part of the second trimester. My midwife gave me something to take to help prevent these headaches and I've only had 1 in the past 3 weeks. Phew! Some days I feel okay in terms of energy and other days I wake up feeling tired and have to lay down for a bit after work.

Maternity clothes: I'm still wearing a lot of my regular dresses, but no regular skirts/pants. It seems like my options are dwindling every day. I'm thinking that I will most likely have to transition to all maternity within the next 2-3 weeks. Shopping for maternity clothes has been challenging. It's tough to find cute maternity clothes in the first place and I really don't want to spend a lot of money since I will only be wearing these items for a relatively short time.

Stretch marks: Not yet.

Sleep: Overall, not the best. I started having trouble sleeping very early on. It kind of comes and goes, but I'm waking up during the night a lot more than normal and I'm waking up earlier in the morning.

Best moment of this week: Feeling my little guy move around:)

Miss anything: The thing I miss the most is cookie dough. A few weeks ago, Ben made homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious, but I really missed eating the dough - that's the best part!

Movement: I just started feeling him move about a week ago (at 19w3d to be exact!). For a couple of weeks prior to that, I occasionally felt a tiny little flutters that I thought may be him, but I wasn't sure (looking back, I'm pretty sure it was him). Now that the movements are more distinct, I'm noticing them more and more. Sometimes it's a slithering/rolling feeling and other times it feels more like a jab/kick. I can feel the kicks from the outside now and Ben felt it for the first time last night. Now that I can feel him, this whole thing feels more real.

Food cravings: No crazy cravings yet. During the first trimester I craved carbs like nobody's business. Now, I'm mostly back to eating my regular diet (with maybe a little more ice cream than usual).

Anything making you queasy or sick: Not anymore! First tri was rough - a lot of things made me queasy, including: meat, some vegetables, and the smell of coffee.

Have you started to show yet: Yup, see above:)

Gender: Boy!!

Labor signs: No, too early. I have had a few braxton hicks contractions, which my midwife said was normal at this point.

Belly button in or out: In, but I can tell it's on its way out (it feels more shallow).

Wedding rings on or off: On

Happy or moody most of the time: Mostly happy at this point. I get tired a lot, so sometimes I get irritable if I'm overly exhausted. Otherwise, my mood is pretty good. My first trimester symptoms included pretty intense mood swings, but things seem to have stabilized.

Looking forward to: Everything! Working on the nursery, experiencing the 2nd half of my pregnancy, taking our childbirth class (starts next Monday), and of course meeting this baby in about 20 more weeks:)

Isn't he cute? This is from the anatomy scan done at 19 weeks 1 day.

This is probably TMI, but here are a couple of my pregnancy tests.  I took a lot of them.  I'm embarrassed to say how many:) I just couldn't believe it was finally happening!  I wanted to re-confirm it every morning and watch the line get darker.  I know it sounds crazy, but after trying for so long, I just needed that extra reassurance.  The top one is one of the first ones I took and the bottom one was taken 5 days later.  I can't believe I'm posting my 'pee sticks' on the internet.

Here is a comparison from our 3 ultrasounds.  We heard the heartbeat for the first time at that early ultrasound (at 6w5d).  We even got to see his heart beating on the screen.  

(note: We ended up having more ultrasounds than normal due to a couple of different reasons. The first one was done because I was under the care of a fertility specialist and it was their standard practice to do an early ultrasound to confirm viability. They scheduled another one for a couple of weeks later, but I opted out of that one. The second one was done because I was having some spotting and my midwife recommended it. The third one was the standard anatomy scan done at the half way point. I just wanted to clarify that having numerous ultrasounds is not typical. Pretty early on, I decided that I would opt out of any "optional" scans and only do the ones that were deemed medically necessary.)