My Big Fat Belly - 14 Weeks

How far along: 14 weeks

Symptoms: Week 14 started my first week in the second trimester. It is totally true that the second trimester feels so much better!! I’m not as tired as I was in the first trimester and not much at all makes me feel sick. I’m doing pretty good right now! The only thing I’ve noticed now is that when I’m standing up or walking around, I really have to pee every 5 seconds, but when I’m sitting down, I’m usually fine for hours. I find this strange.

Maternity Clothes: None yet!! Still using the belly band and wearing lots and lots of dresses and skirts. My goal is to make it to week 18 without having to take that first trip to Motherhood Maternity, but I doubt I’ll make it past 16. The belly grew A LOT in the last two weeks.

Weight Gain: Up to 6 pounds total, which means I gained the pound I was supposed to, plus a half a pound :) Also, on the exercise front, I’m loving swimming. Justin goes to the Y all the time to swim, but I went with him some this week and I love it.

Sleep: Same as usual…good, but interrupted frequently to pee.

Cravings/Aversions: No crazy ones this week to note.

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 14, Won Ton was the size of a lemon. The kidneys are producing urine that is being released back into the amniotic fluid, the same fluid he/she inhales. Gross. Won Ton can also squint and frown and make faces. They do this frequently which is good because he/she is exercising their facial muscles.

Gender: Counting down until we find out!! We’ll definitely know this month!!!

What I Miss: I still kind of miss my brain. My thoughts are one big jumbled mess and I can’t remember the things I tell people vs. things I think that I need to tell people but never actually do. Basically, I can’t be trusted to remember things these days.

What I’m Looking Forward To: 16 week appointment on July 15th.

Bump Pic for the Week:

Bump pic for this week taken at 14 weeks and 6 days (so basically, it’s really a 15 week picture…oh well). You can clearly tell the bump has grown. I’ve had multiple people put their hand out to touch my stomach, something that hadn’t happened before now because it just wasn’t noticeable enough. I try the best I can to cover it up with flowy dresses and bigger shirts, but I know it won’t last long. Eventually there’s gonna be no way to hide it…

Advice I Need: I don’t really have one specific question I’m looking for an answer to right now, but I would love comments from currently pregnant or previously pregnant women. Tell me anything that you wish you had done differently while pregnant, if you have any regrets like that, or anything that you didn’t know at the time but wish you would have. Basically any fun helpful advice, the kind no one tells you about because they don’t think it’s significant enough!

My Big Fat Belly - 13 Weeks

First off, I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to be able to keep up the weekly Won Ton posts.  I really really want to because I want to be able to look back at it later, but so much is going on and I’m having to scrounge to find time to write them :(

How far along:  13 weeks

Symptoms:  Still have the ligament pain every now and again, which I hear is expected during the second trimester.  Oh yeah, this week was my last week in the first trimester…I’m now 1/3 of the way through this craziness…wow!  Still can’t believe that.  I also forgot to mention in my 12 week post that I did have my 12 week appointment but didn’t see my actual doctor because he was working in the Anniston office that day, so I saw another doctor in that group at St. Vincent’s.  My normal doc said he wants me to see everyone in the group so that if he’s not able to deliver the baby, I’ll have at least met whoever is going to do the delivering.  I like this idea a lot!  Anyway, the other doctor asked me a few questions, did a urine test, checked my weight and then I finally got to hear the heartbeat on the doppler.  It’s nothing like seeing my baby on the screen, but it’s a close second.  Heart rate was about 160bpm (she was estimating because it wasn’t a doppler that had the heart rate shown).

Maternity Clothes:  Still rockin’ the belly band.  I got a lot of GREAT suggestions from you guys about bathing suits and have decided that I will go to Target to buy a larger size tankini.  There’s honestly no need for me to have a maternity suit because I’ll only be wearing a bathing suit for maybe 2 more months and I just won’t need one of the really big ones.  By the time I’m that big, it’ll be cold again.

Weight Gain:  Gained half a pound this week, so I’m up to 4 1/2.  I plan to talk to my doc at my 16 week appointment (July 15th) about the supposed one pound I’m told to gain every week because I would gain way more than the recommended 25 if I did that from here on out.  I’m very curious about that.  I’ve gotten back into a normal workout routine that I love.  I take a dance class two days a week that is my cardio for the week.  I typically burn about 500+ calories at each of those.  Then two other days I go to the gym and work on weights.  I’m loving my routine right now.

Sleep:  Sleep is pretty good minus the fact that I get up twice every night to pee.

Cravings/Aversions:  Eggs and Chocolate Milk….don’t know if those cravings will ever really go away.  I love them both so much!  And I found a new aversion….broccoli.  Which is such a shame.  I was so proud of myself that I learned to like broccoli and now I can’t eat it at all.  I’ve tried dipping it in dressings, gravy, all kinds of stuff.  But it’s just not doing it for me.

Baby Size:  Up to a peach!  I can’t believe Won Ton is this big!  Of course he/she was this big at the beginning of week 13.  I’m typing this 13 week post when I’m 13 weeks and 6 days so really, baby is bigger than this now.  He/she can now move around and suck their thumb!  I seriously really hope that at my next ultrasound I get a thumb sucking picture…it’s just so sweet!

Gender:  I have had one dream it was a boy, and then this past week, I had a dream it was a girl.  I’m so confused myself!!!  Part of me is still leaning towards boy, but there’s another part of me that is really getting more and more used to the idea of having a girl.  When Carina and I were in New York last week, we went to FAO toy store to pick out something for my niece's upcoming birthday.  She is the girliest of girls and so naturally I started looking for cute little dresses/tutu’s.  I got in the little girls dress up department and just went crazy.  I imagined having a little girl and her being in an adorable and bright purple tutu with a matching top and little princess crown.  Carina looked at me like I was crazy.  However, all this being said, I for some reason still have this feeling it’s a boy.

What I Miss:  I miss my brain.  Y’all….I’m literally getting dumber by the day.  I feel like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels sometimes…for real.

What I’m Looking Forward To:  July 15th is the next appointment, but honestly, I’m looking forward to getting something in the mail.  I went on Amazon and found a fetal doppler that was super cheap and purchased it.  I love hearing Won Ton’s heart beating and I am sad I don’t get to hear it more often.  So I’m really looking forward to this thing coming in the mail so I can hear it whenever my heart desires (no pun intended).  My July 15th appointment is my 16 week appointment and we won’t have an ultrasound.  It’ll be like my 12 week appointment where I just give a urine sample, check weight, talk to the doc and then hear the heart.

Bump Pic for the Week:

So sorry, but there’s no bump picture this week!!  I just haven’t had the time to take one.  I’ll take one at 14 weeks.

Advice I Need:  Like I said, you guys were so helpful on the advice front, so I’m gonna have to make this a normal section of these posts, because I am always looking for advice in certain areas.  This week my advice needed relates to stretch marks.  I know I’m still early in my pregnancy and don’t have to deal with this now, but I’ve just always wondered about it so I wanted to ask.  Did you guys use anything to prevent stretch marks?  If so, what did you use, when in your pregnancy did you start using it and how often did you use it?

Rome, Italy

Can you tell I’m trying to catch up on some blog posts today???  I just now realized that I never even blogged about our trip to Rome and London.  We had such a blast…except for the part that I was 7 weeks pregnant and exhausted and all we did was walk around both cities.  I truly thought I was on the verge of a slow and painful death.  But hey…at least the scenery was awesome!

I picked a few of my fav pics of Rome.  See my facebook album for all of them:

I trust you guys know what this is.

This is the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican

This is a view from the bottom of the Spanish Steps.  Our hotel was at the top of the steps and to the right.

This is the view from the top of a bright white building called Emmanuel Vittorio.  The locals apparently  hate this building because of the color.  But man it had great views!!

The Pantheon.  We also took an Angels&Demons tour.  It’s the book by Dan Brown that followed The Da Vinci Code.  I love his books.  They’re so amazing!  Anyway, we went to all the main locations in the book.  This wasn’t one that we went to on the tour, but it was one of the locations in the book.

This, however, is one of the main locations and we went here with the tour group.  This is Piazza de Navona.  This is the scene in the book where the fourth cardinal dies of the water element (although in the movie he didn’t die, he went on to become the next pope).  This structure is called “Fountain of the Four Rivers”.

This was another location we went to on the tour.  This was in the Santa Maria del Vittoria Church and if you saw the movie, you recognize the sculpture.  It’s the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.  This church was where the third cardinal died of the fire element.

This is the Roman Forum.  It’s a very large park of old sculptures and buildings that are left of Ancient Rome.

     

This is what the inside of the Colosseum looks like , in case you were wondering.

Arc of Constantine outside of the Colosseum

Trevi Fountain by night.  BEAUTIFUL!

Me in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.  The weekend we were in Rome was a BUSY weekend!  It was the weekend that the late Pope John Paul had his beatification ceremony to become a saint.  Over a million people were in Rome that weekend.  We sure know good times to travel ;)

     

I’m not even kidding when I say that SO MANY of the churches in Rome look like this on the inside.  The architecture and paintings and sculptures are absolutely beautiful!!  Fun fact…there are over 700 churches in Rome and 400 of them have the name “Maria” in them.  Wow.

This is a picture of one of the hallways in the Vatican Museums.  I mean, they go big in Rome.  Just sayin.