14 Weeks

THIS WEEK
I'm 14 weeks and it is so much fun watching these weeks go by now. We had an ob appointment this week and with the 12 week ultrasound (and my little-longer-than-normal periods) they moved my due date to February 9th instead of 6th (although baby measured ahead by 4 days) - not a big jump and might even mean we will have a February baby instead of late January since we will be induced before the due date. My ob was on vacation, but his temp went over our ultrasound and gave us the okay to use our home doppler whenever needed (the entire office seems to understand the anxiety that comes with our pregnancy). At the end of the appointment she offered to try to get our baby's heartbeat on their doppler, after a few minutes of searching and joking that the one we have at home must be better than theirs - she couldn't find the heartbeat. Despite listening to our baby's heartbeat the other day, I started to feel a twinge of worry creep up, she assured us that everything is fine but would send us for a ultrasound right away just to keep me from worrying. We had a few hours until our ultrasound so we went home, found our little baby's heartbeat which brought waves of relief over me and we relaxed until our ultrasound. The tech must have been a little confused by how relaxed we were but it was still a wonderful ultrasound, we saw our little baby - relaxing this time, the tech told us it is very common to see baby's start to have an active and resting routine which we thought was adorable (of course, haha). She showed us all the little details of our baby and confirmed that everything is just as they like to see - although we were feeling pretty good by then, it was so comforting to hear that our sweet baby is healthy and growing strong. It was also kind of fun to compare the growth between our 12 week ultrasound and this one as it was only a handful of days later - baby had already grown an inch (and was still measuring a couple of days ahead). We loved that this little baby was holding his/her hands close to their face, something their big brother often did during ultrasounds (and how Daddy will sometimes sleep) and thought it was adorable that our baby seemed to be sucking his/her thumb!

BABY UPDATE

Baby is the size of a lemon this week and at first I was a little stumped because the peach from last week seemed just as big as the lemon, until I put them side by side. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but the whole fruit/veggie comparisons are more for our entertainment than an accurate measurement of our baby obviously, and because we find it a lot of fun to be able to physically hold and look at something that is approximately the size of our sweet little baby - can't believe how big he/she is already!

Baby is now able to move all of the tiny joints in his/her body, and is constantly moving around inside my uterus, baby's reflexes are also becoming stronger and being used more frequently. He or she may already be sucking its thumb now and can make different facial expressions like a frown, grimace or squinting. The tiny hair (called Lanugo) that covers our little baby's body (and protects the delicate skin from the constant contact with the amniotic fluid) continues to grow and will eventually form into the baby's fingerprints.

MOMMA UPDATE

Although I have, with excitement, celebrated each of these early milestones - less than 200 days, every time we hear his/her heartbeat, each ultrasound we get and the end of the first trimester. I, for some reason, believed I would feel less worried as we entered the second trimester and although I do feel relieved that our risk for loss continues to drop with every passing day - there is this little voice that hides in the dark corners of my worries, the one that reminds me that we lost our son after his due date, that there is no safe zone until this precious baby is here (and even then there will be millions of things to make me worry) and I pray that this voice is quieted because I do believe that this baby is going to be here but I can't wait until he/she is here. All that to say, I'm still relying on our doppler when my worries act up and am very grateful that we have the approval of our doctor's office to do so. Despite fighting off my anxiety, I am absolutely overjoyed that our baby is growing healthy and strong, my belly is getting bigger every day it seems and I am so happy to be pregnant. I noticed that the last couple of days when I get up in the morning my nose is so stuffed and despite it being stuffed, my nose is leaking and I'm sneezing up a storm but I'm not catching a cold at all and by mid morning it is gone. My nausea is slowly, VERY slowly, starting to go away, although heart burn seems to have come back a bit more frequently this week. I can now feel my uterus pressed tightly against my skin just below my belly button, it is most obvious when I'm laying down but I'm starting to feel it even when I'm up and about. I am officially sleeping between my two body pillows (ie. my hot dog bun, haha) and feel pretty glad that I am able to get comfortable and sleep a little. A lot of pain this week though; between round ligament pains and my uterus stretching my lower back and hips have apparently gotten the memo this week that I am pregnant again (when I was pregnant with our son, even before the positive test, my lower back and hips were unbelievably sore - made sense as I carried very low with him). But, as always, every pain and symptom is absolutely worth it.

Belly is measuring 37.5 inches, knew it would catch up!

DADDY MOMENTS
Rubbing Momma's sore back and being so protective of his little baby :)

FAVORITE PART OF THE WEEK
Getting to see our beautiful little baby again, giggling over the routine this little one already seems to have.

LOOKING FORWARD TO
Finding out the gender of our little baby, can't wait!

xo, Anne.