Week by Week: Week 17

Our Baby: 

• Is over 5 inches long now. That's about the length of my (small) hand!
• Has fully formed ears now in the correct spot on his/her head. Time to start filling his/her ears with sounds . . . and maybe resting the laptop on my belly while watching Friends isn't the most educational thing he/she could be hearing, but it is the greatest sitcom of all time--and I'll fight you on that. 
• Is starting to fatten up now that everything is formed and in place. 
• Is starting to turn a cartilage skeleton into a bone skeleton. 

I (traditionally):

• Am hoping to see a regular increase in weight week by week. 
• And have, on average, gained about 5 to 10 pounds by now. 
• Have started making some plans about what we want to know, what we don't want to know, and how we want this whole experience to play out. 
• Have bodily fluids come out of me in spades because of my increased blood flow. 
• Can now definitely see my bump, but am still in that awkward stage where strangers might just think I'm still carrying all my "holiday weight." 
• Have more padding around my middle now, and, with my internal organs shifting as my uterus grows, I have an easier time feeling it while standing rather than while on my back. 
• Might have started noticing some sciatic nerve pain.
• Might feel the baby move for the first time, if I haven't already. 

I (actually): 

• Have gained a total of about 3 pounds since I started. This whole idea of average weight gained by this point is all over the place, and even though I'm supposedly behind by the numbers as long as my midwife says I'm doing well I'm content. 
• Have more plans than most ladies might by this point. I'll explain more at the bottom, and some of our plans will be individual posts. 
• Do have bodily fluids in spades. Lots of sweat. Lots of mucus. Lots of saliva. Just . . . lots. 
• Since most of my shirts are a bit flowy, it's not terribly obvious that there's something underneath, but I can totally see a curve in my belly when I pull them tight. No one in public has mentioned me being pregnant yet, so I'm assuming that it's not as obvious as I might think. One lady did talk to me about it, but it was because we were both browsing in the maternity section at Target. I think that might have given her a clue. 
• Don't think I have sciatic nerve pain, but sometimes at night my legs have this weird, tingling numbness that makes it impossible to find a good position. Holding them still doesn't work, and neither does moving them, bending them, flexing them, nothing!
• No movement yet. Sigh. 

So our plans. 

1. No triple screen test for us. We have our reasons, of course, but that's the sort of thing that's so personal to some people that we'll just keep our reasons to ourselves. My midwife didn't press me on it, so, again, I'm content. 
2. We will find out the gender. Hardly any of that decision has to do with prepping for baby ahead of time. Most of it has to do with a desire to connect with, pray for, and name this child now because of our past history with pregnancy loss. 
3. I'm sorry to tell y'all this and disappoint some of you, we will not tell you the gender or the name. A very small number of people will be told these things, and they are all related to us by blood and have the names Mom, Dad, Sister, or Brother. 
4. I'll be taking the test for gestational diabetes. I'm not excited about it by any means, but I trust my midwife and she recommends that every patient take it, no matter where they fall on risk factors. 
5. I will be taking childbirth classes, and I'm looking around at my various options. 
6. I will be writing a birth plan, and I'll go over that in another post--probably. 

I've got our registry well in hand by now. It may be early, but with all the research I wanted to do (and how long it took me!) I'm glad that I started early. I have spent a lot of time walking around the baby sections of popular stores, but I really can't get on board with most the products they offer. A lot of my research has led me to products that either can't be found in those stores or are only available at a specialty store. Since a lot of people don't have access to those kinds of stores, and since you can't really register at those sort of stores I needed a way to pull it all together. I've heard great things about BabyList, but here's my problem. Some of the items I'd like (like a Boba baby carrier) are far over our normal gift-giving cap and the gift-giving cap of most people we know. I really wanted a way for people to contribute to larger gifts without feeling the pressure of buying the whole item.

Enter, Simple Registry. I'll write more about it in a later post, but it's turned out to be exactly what I'm looking for. If you visit the link, I'd recommend watching the cute, little video that explains the process. It's great!

Besides all those planning things and the difference I can see in my body, I'd hardly know I was pregnant. I'm sleeping. I have energy. I can eat anything and everything and enjoy it. Well, not cilantro, but I've never been able to eat cilantro. This is one of those weeks where I'm thinking that pregnancy is pretty great!

Freak-Out Moments:

None! Huzzah!

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Keep it real, y'all!