23 weeks

How far along:  23 weeks  (2.5.14)

Total weight gain/loss: 14.5 lbs... the pounds are packing on fast

Maternity clothes:  yes to maternity shirts, but not anything else.  right now it's just a game to see how long i can go before i turn to maternity g's and jeans.  also hoping i won't be too big to cram my belly into my swimsuits in a few weeks when we go to brazil. 

Sleep:  not bad at all.  i always sleep through the night and have actually been sleeping until my alarm goes off at 8:17 or whatever i've set it to.  i get a lot of sleep and some afternoons i'm fully energetic and some i seriously can barely stand on my feet or keep my eyes opened. 

Best moment this week:  this morning... getting my printer to finally work!  i can do hard things!

Movement:  the kicks and punches have been so much stronger this week!  the other night, i was sitting in bed watching tv with honey and the kicks were strong.  then honey turned off the tv and listened to a conference talk on his phone and holy crap was this baby going absolutely nuts in my belly.  so strong, the thumps were reverberating like banging on a drum.  they were all around my belly button too which was unusual because i normally don't feel movement there (and my doctor and the ultrasound tech have both confirmed that's where my placenta is) so i wonder what the deal is with that.  also, she's still lodging herself down low sometimes (on the right side still, of course) and it's still really really uncomfortable like i have to pause what i'm doing and just not move because it's kind of painful like a contraction.  i seem to be noticing that less and less frequently though so maybe it's decreasing in consistency or maybe i'm just getting more used to the ones that aren't that bad so they don't really register to me.  either way, the movement is in full swing.  i love it.

Food cravings:  i love the idea of eating, but it frequently doesn't hit the spot.  especially meal foods.  i'm still loving sweets though and there have been random things (like the cherry flavored lifesavers they handed out in primary on sunday while i was subbing abigail's class) that tasted really good to me when ordinarily, i wouldn't have cared for them.  i got a salad when we went to texas roadhouse on friday night and ate every bite of it because it was so good.  it was just the regular side salad but it had tomatoes and boiled egg, and ranch and i was loving it.  pregnant eating is just really different than regular eating.  also, i have a greater desire to eat, even if i'm not hungry and even though the food very frequently isn't satisfying.  i think i'm just always on the hunt for that moment when it perfectly hits the spot.  like the lifesavers, and the salad, and the other day when i had a few otter pops from the freezer that i'd found from who knows when, or that handful of chocolate chips, or the pringles from sunday night.  or even the roasted peanuts that they have out at texas roadhouse... i seriously never ever eat them but when we were there on friday, after i finished my meal, i wanted one.  well, specifically, i just wanted to lick the shell.  i could have gone through a whole bucket... just licking the shells... not eating the peanuts.  that's weird pregnancy stuff for me.  it's so not my norm.

Symptoms: nausea at night is bugging the crap out of me.  it's probably been more nights than not and it comes on around 4 o clock.  it's normally not horrible, but has gotten a few times to the point where i've felt like i could very possibly throw up.  it's enough that i still have a barf bag at the bottom of my purse.  several nights i've laid in bed and just had this weird traveling tennis ball through my esophagus/right side of my chest and behind my ribcage sort of feeling.  i googled it to see if it was heartburn because i'm not experienced in heartburn and i know it's common in pregnancy, but everyone said that feels like, surprise surprise... burning.  which this did not.  anyways, so weird.  but also weird that it was normally accompanied by me semi throwing up repeatedly in my mouth.  pregnancy is so glamorous.  several times, i've needed/wanted to sit down... just because.  and once (on monday morning sometime) i almost passed out.  that is seriously such a horrible, horrible feeling.  all of those sensations in my body.  but i made it to my bed actually before things got worse and after five minutes i was feeling fine (although still pretty cautious because it's always a scary feeling to get over).

Gender:  my excitement about this being a girl makes it hard to me to even imagine if this was a boy or that it could have been a boy.  we haven't discussed names anymore, but the more i think about it, the more i'm stuck on the one we'd been considering around thanksgiving.  i'm still not 100% on a middle name though.

What I miss:  not being able to eat whatever i want without gaining weight.  i'm still eating whatever i want but i'm gaining at least two pounds a week and i have mom guilt about the sugar i'm consuming because i'm sharing my body with a child.  i saw a picture of my skinny self (i was 11 weeks along i think) when i was importing honey's pictures from his phone to my computer and i was astonished at my lack of a belly.  i know i had a belly then (it popped at 8 weeks) but it wasn't apparent with what i was wearing and it seemed foreign to me that my belly was ever smaller than what it currently is.  when i'm pregnant, it's just hard for me to fully wrap my head around the "no belly" concept while simultaneously having a hard time believing how huge my belly really is.  i seriously pull up my shirt to look at my belly and am completely blown away by its size!  our bodies are amazing to be able to do this.

Milestones:  i think my baby is probably over a foot long and a pound heavy... that's amazing!
Theme: the week of... i'm still getting fatter
What's different this time around:  ehhh, i dunno.  i'm still shocked that my weight gain has been so similar so far across the three pregnancies!

Extra:  i'm at the sweet spot of pregnancy right now and it's wonderful.  not too big, not uncomfortable, not sick... just fat and happy.  abigail's preschool teacher just told me today that she didn't know i was pregnant.  ha.  whoops.  glad you noticed.  i love feeling this baby move all the time.  it's so amazing.  i'm doing a pretty good job right now at checking in with myself emotionally since i know i can be emotionally unstable (i almost cried on the phone today when i was explaining my printer problem to the canon tech support guy) and it's working well.  abigail has two hours of quiet time while brady naps so i get that time mostly to myself to read or get stuff done or just lay in bed doing who knows what.  it's helping my patience although i miss my friends and family because that's the time of day when i would normally talk on the phone to people.  i'm still feeling that nesting feeling of wanting to get my life in order before this baby comes and that's part of it... instead of talking on the phone, i'm researching online about minivans and infant carseats and how to organize whatever happens to be on my mind.  i'm trying to be a better mother to abigail though.  she's been so on my nerves lately (she's being normally normal and average, i'm just really irritable because i'm pregnant and irrational) and so i've been having to make a more concious effort in that area.  i've also found that when christopher is super playful, that bugs the crap out of me.  luckily, i can just calmly explain to him that it's not him, it's me, and i just need him to calm himself and take things down a notch.  he's been really good at not getting offended by those sorts of comments.  like last night when i told him i needed us to start cuddling and falling asleep in the middle of the bed instead of my side of the bed because then he's asleep and i'm trapped sleeping on two feet of space.  "honey, it's not that i don't love you or that i don't want to be close to you, i just need more space now that i'm pregnant and i toss and turn so much at night... i don't want to have to wake you up and tell you i need more space.  so let's just cuddle right here and i'll still have adequate room after you've fallen asleep."  really, he's a champ.

2.5.15 at 23 weeks pregnant

2.5.15 at 23 weeks pregnant

i really should have put on some makeup today.  i swear i'm not that tired or beaten down... that just how i look without mascara.  ; )