How pregnant are you? 23 weeks. I feel like I've been pregnant forever. Round. My uterus is roughly 1.5" above my navel at this point, which explains the roundness, but it's still very, very surreal to see my body changing so drastically on a daily basis.
(I know, I know, dirty mirror, sorry!)
Relate this pregnancy to objects we tend to eat or other daily stuff. Bugbear is huge. Relatively. Over a pound at this point, and tall/long enough that s/he is bigger than last week, but no longer given likely weekly measurements on various websites. So s/he's still roughly the length of a spaghetti squash. Our ultrasound last week showed that his/her feet are 4cm long right now, so looking at a ruler helped give us a better picture of exactly what's growing in there.Tell me some random stuff about the Bugbear. Bugbear is having a growth spurt this week, and for the next few weeks, at a rate of up to 6oz per week, due to increased intake of the sugars and nutrients in the amniotic fluid. So it isn't my imagination that I'm feeling more huge each day, and actually feeling my abs and round ligaments stretching and pulling and changing.
Visually, Bugbear's eyebrows are now visible, and if there's hair on his/her head, it could be up to 1/2" long, though it's unlikely to have pigment yet.
Internally, Bugbear's middle ear bones are hardening, which is creating a sense of balance and direction--as s/he moves around in my uterus, s/he may be able to recognize up and down, as well as be able to distinguish rolling movements. I know that I'm certainly feeling those things!
His/her pancreas is starting to produce insulin, and s/he continues to pack on the baby fat. Alveoli are forming in his/her little lungs, which will eventually allow him/her to breathe after birth. That sort of development means that we're increasingly close to viability, or the possibility that Bugbear could survive in the outside world if s/he were born in the next few weeks. We obviously want him/her to keep cooking for at least another 10 weeks, though!
What are you doing with/for Bugbear that's new? We're starting to think about things like baby showers, which means deciding what stuff s/he and we will actually need and want, and what just isn't us. I'm spending far too much time on etsy looking at fabric that I might use to make bedding...but fabric is just so delightful. So far, we haven't had a periscope peek out from my navel and nod vigorously at any particular pattern, so this is one of those decisions that we'll probably have to make without the kid's input.
Tell me how you feel physically. Odd. Achy. Huge. I've had some days with pain so bad I couldn't walk, and more where I feel somewhere between good and excellent. I am freaked out by my hugeness, and the knowledge that I'm only going to get bigger. But there's also something really intriguing about never really knowing what I'm going to look or feel like a few hours in the future.
What are you craving? Cherries. I bought two pounds of organic cherries at Trader Joe's yesterday, and not eating them all at once is as difficult as not eating all the shortbread with chocolate that I bought.
Are you crazy emotional? Yes. Tears at tiny diapers, my hair, moving again, not moving, the unfairness of life that's happening to so many people I care about right now, missing people, the future, adorable onesies, meat, being tired, being awake...it doesn't take much right now.
Tell me how you feel otherwise. Overall, good. I'm really working to incorporate my goal of living in the present at every moment into this pregnancy. I'm only doing this once. This is the point in my life where I'll be 23 weeks pregnant, and I want to drink it in, remember it, take it for what it is without forcing it to be anything else. It's harder to do so when the pain or exhaustion or frustration are bad, but it's also helped me to appreciate what's going on rather than trying to make it more ideal.
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