19 Weeks

Your pregnancy: 19 weeks

How your baby's growing:

Your baby's sensory development is exploding! Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you.
Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

How your life's changing:

Think you're big now? You'll start growing even faster in the weeks to come. As a result, you may notice some achiness in your lower abdomen or even an occasional brief, stabbing pain on one or both sides — especially when you shift position or at the end of an active day. Most likely, this is round ligament pain. The ligaments that support your uterus are stretching to accommodate its increasing weight. This is nothing to be alarmed about, but call your practitioner if the pain continues even when you're resting or becomes severe.


So I've been doing well so far except for this awful cold I can't seem to kick. But things are well here. Baby is about 11 ounces according to my ultrasound yesterday so it's a big kid! I have to do another full comprehensive ultrasound in 4 weeks because baby was at a bad angle and we couldn't see all the things they needed to see. They aren't worried, but want to look again, just to be sure. I'm not surprised they couldn't see everything, this baby was curled up in a tiny ball!! On the profile picture they printed for me, you can see the baby's foot right above his/her head! Stretch out kid! You only have a few more weeks/months until you will have NO room to stretch! 

I actually don't feel big right now. Sometimes I even forget that I'm pregnant to be honest. Not like I actually forget we're having another baby, but I don't realize how far along I am because I try to do things I used to do. Like RUN up the stairs or carry huge baskets of laundry up two flights of stairs. I'm sure in the next month or so I'll blow up and laugh at this post. I do get round ligament pain pretty frequently though because I do forget and get up or move way too quickly. 

Heart rate on Tuesday at my OB appointment was in the 140's and during the ultrasound was 163, so this baby is keeping me going back and forth on whether I'm guessing boy or girl. :) We think we have names narrowed down to two for each sex, but I'm not posting them on here. Not after the things I've been hearing from people about other people's name choices! Our next baby will just be one big surprise for everyone! 

School starts again on Monday so I will probably disappear again for awhile, but I'm going to try and post at least once a week. We'll see if I can at least pull that off... ;)

Happy 19 weeks baby!