19 Weeks

Today is the last day of my 19th week of pregnancy.

Overall, Im feeling great. I still haven't had any bleeding or other complications in 5 weeks. At this point, all my nausea is pretty much gone and I have a decent amount of energy.

While I haven't been running or really even working out, I have been pretty active, especially on the weekends. Jeremy and I have spent any free time we have either walking around the city or hosting get-togethers at our new place, which leaves me little time to be lazy. This is good since I sit on my butt all day at work.

For the most part, I feel great walking around, but after a few hours I am spent. It's an odd feeling to have to take a nap after walking around for 2-3 hours when a few months ago I could get up at 5am, run that much, then walk another 4-5 hours in the city and feel fine.

I have also noticed that the steep stairs I have to climb to get up to my train after work have been taking their toll on me. I have never actually counted them, but I would guess there are over 40-50 and they are really steep. I used to be able to race up them to catch my train. Now I have to take each step pretty slowly, then spend about 5 minutes catching my breath when I get to the top.

It's odd how this little creature takes over your entire body.

Eating has been fine. I haven't had any weird cravings or anything like that, although I am loving anything salty (soy sauce, green olives, baby dill pickles, etc). I have been trying to eat well, even if tonight I had a croissant with dill dip and some chips and salsa for dinner. Sigh.

I haven't been overeating at all, which is actually a change from when I am not pregnant. I just get so full so fast. But I need to incorporate more veggies into my diet. I have been really good about eating fruits and salads. But with the colder weather coming in, I am craving soups and comfort foods, not salads.

But as of today, I have only gained 10lbs which is right on schedule for my height/weight, so I'm feeling really good about that.

I had another appointment with my midwife last Monday and all was good. We heard a really strong heartbeat this time which was great. J couldn't be there again because he had class, but he stepped out for a few minutes and called us so he could hear the heartbeat on speakerphone while we were listening on the doppler. My midwife gets a kick out of it every time :)

She also told me to just come in every two weeks for appointments for peace of mind. She said she doesn't care how many times she sees me, if I want to come in for a quick checkup and heartbeat check, I can. I think I am gong to take her up on it. With everything we have been through, there is something reassuring about hearing that "woosh, woosh, woosh" every couple of weeks.

So, tomorrow I will officially be 20 weeks pregnant. I know I say this every week, but I seriously never thought I would get this far.

We actually have our 20 week full anatomy scan on Thursday. Since we haven't had any other genetic testing done this time (besides the five ultrasounds in the first trimester) we are anxiously awaiting this day.

I have actually suddenly been overwhelmed with scary thoughts about losing this baby in the past week. I know this is directly due to this ultrasound which just makes me glad I never did any of the testing earlier. I would have been a wreck the entire pregnancy. No matter what happens now, at least we had a few weeks of stress-free happiness. But I am trying not to be negative since I know that is not going to help or change anything. I'm just staying positive and going in with happy thoughts about seeing Butterbean and hopefully finding out we have a perfectly healthy baby boy or girl.

Yes, as long as the Bean cooperates, we will be finding out the sex. I have no real feelings one way or the other about which one it might be. At first I was thinking girl, but since seeing the Bean on the ultrasounds, I have been slightly leaning towards feeling it's a boy. All my friends and family are split 50/50 with their thoughts. Jeremy and Dakota both said if they "had to chose" they would probably want a girl, which totally shocked me about Dakota. I thought he wanted a brother for sure, so that was a nice surprise.

Every random online quiz or old-wives gender test I have taken have literally come up 50/50 as well, so I guess we will just have to wait and see in a day and a half!!!!

Anyone want to place any bets???