21 weeks

compare to 21 weeks from my first pregnancy.

i think i look much rounder in the belly this time. depending on the time of day and how much food/water i've consumed, the belly can appear much larger! i'm feeling pretty good at this halfway (and a week) point but i have bad sciatica on my right side and it definitely affects my movement and sleep. i am still working out 3 times a week on average and have continued to do my hour long kickboxing class thus far. my goal of holding a 30 second plank throughout my whole pregnancy is continuing strong. i don't think i weigh less than last time around but i am stronger/fitter so i guess that's what's important!

how far along? 21 weeks

total weight gain: 17 lbs this morning (down 2 lbs from 18 weeks?)
maternity clothes? yes. i actually just cleared out my closet of tighter fitting/nice non-maternity items
sleep: pretty good aside from the sciatic pain
best moment this week: hmm, it wouldn't be walking around chicago for 3+ hours (fun but ouch)
movement: yes, rolls and kicks but baby doesn't like when i put my hand on my belly to feel
gender: boy
labor signs: none
belly button in or out? stretched
food cravings: lemon! i made homemade lemon curd for a variety of desserts and breakfasts
what i miss: honestly, i want a cocktail so bad!!
what i am looking forward to: buying a house so i can start planning a nursery
weekly wisdom: i think i'm going to delete this from the survey...i never have any!
milestones: just past halfway

still allergic

i may have mentioned a long time ago that finn had a pretty severe reaction to mustard around 14 months. his face was covered in hives and his eyes started to swell. we took him to get tested and while his blood test came back negative, the allergist warned that he may have been too young to get good test results on this sort of allergy. a few weeks later he touched a chicken salad with mustard in it...just one finger...and then he touched his face. within a minute he had a red, splotchy hive in the shape of his finger.

since then we have avoided any sort of mustard. it's a pretty easy allergy to deal with because there isn't a lot of hidden mustard. we avoid lots of pot luck style salads at gatherings and skip using it in family recipes (much to our dismay - we love mustard!!). we have epi pens and benadryl and aside from the few times we've administered benadryl, we haven't had any scares. in fact, we even thought he probably had outgrown it by now.

but last week we were out for sushi and finn had some spicy california rolls. i noticed his lips swelling a bit and his cheeks and chin had hives. i did a make-shift allergy test by putting wasabi paste on one cheek and the spicy sauce on the other. sure enough, the spicy sauce caused a reaction. i could only assume there was some sort of mustard in it as everything else in the roll he'd had before without issue. the reaction went away but i made him another appointment to be rechecked.

today he had the back skin test and sure enough, he reacted to the mustard sample. the hive wasn't as big as the control positive, but it measured large enough to be a legit allergy. people have a hard time believing a mustard allergy and now i can tell them for sure that he is currently allergic via a skin test. we'll follow up with a blood test this week and go from there. he'll be rechecked yearly and the dr. thinks he may still out grow it.

for now, we'll hold the mustard and continue informing people that yes, he does have this allergy. yes, it is real. it surprises me how many people act like i'm making it up!

big brother, little...

we had our anatomy scan on 1/25 and all went well. obviously, we found out that baby #2 is a boy. it's hard to imagine being a mom to two little (and eventually, big) boys but that's where i'm headed!! finn really thought this baby was a girl (he told people it was prior to this without "coaching") and he is having a bit of trouble understanding that it really is a boy. good thing we've got some time to prepare him :)

 

baby is very healthy and we were lucky enough to have a long u/s with tons of pictures and every little detail examined. hb was 167 (so don't let people tell you that high heart rates = girls!). and we saw that little organ beating away, all 4 chambers looking great.

 the baby was very active and i was actually surprised not to be able to feel that all of the kicking and arm swinging. at this point, the movement i can detect must be full rolls and changing positions. baby boy had his behind his head at one point and covered his face a number of times. his feet were so cute! all of his limb measurements are great.

for the first time ever, we we treated to a 3d view. i often find these a little disconcerting because of the textures but this shot was a pretty good visual of his peanut face. (and it looks like daddy's nose!) finn was extremely scared of the 3d portion and could not handle it, so we only looked for a minute.

true to form, i did go out yesterday and buy a little something (in grey, not blue!) for new baby brother. he is bound to get mostly hand-me-downs and it's hard to imagine him wearing all of finn's things as his own. now that i know gender, i can begin to do some real planning. names, nursery...oh and we're buying a house so that might take up some of my time, too!

reading

finn has always liked to read. we've been reading books to him since he was born and it's one of his favorite things to do now. in an average day we'll read 10+ books, a habit that is helped by almost weekly trips to the library. 

for all of that reading, he has never been into "reading aloud" by himself. he loves to page through books and look at the pictures, but he has never pretended to read (as a baby/pre-words) nor will he recite any parts of books on his own.

i know he knows the words to many of his favorites. if i pause while reading to him, he will chime in with the proper words. similar to how he resisted speaking in general or shying away from tasks in which he was not totally sure of himself, he gets nervous and shuts down when i asks him to read to me. since i don't want reading to become a burden for him, i have never pushed it.

a few days ago he blew me away by reading an entire book, out loud, to me. after taking these pictures to remember this time when he flips through books (and looks adorable!), i started to get ready for our errands. he sat reading a short, simple book and i asked him if he'd tell me the story. typically this results in a whiny "no, no you read dis book to me.", but instead he started on the first page and said "sometimes you are happy"..."sometimes you are sad"... and until the end he remembered all of the lines matched with the pictures on the pages. on the last page he made up some silly ending because he's squirelly like that.

 

it was so sweet to see him recite a story using the pictures as a guide for the memorized words. i just cross my fingers that he'll continue to love books as much as i do (and his dad, whose bookshelves dominate the office) and that we'll continue to read to each other.

(in non-finn news, my gender ultrasound is tomorrow...boy or girl this time??!)

18 weeks

compare to 18 weeks from my first pregnancy.

i have been feeling a lot of movement, especially at night. mostly just rolls and swirling feelings, but every so often i get a clear, single jab or kick. a few days ago i got a good one and asked mr. h3b to try and feel from the outside. we waited and baby did the rolling after only about a minute. so movement felt on the outside by another person at 17w6d. i checked back on my last pregnancy and the time frame was very similar.

how far along? 18 weeks
total weight gain: 10lb. i didn't gain any weight between 11 and 15 weeks, but then came the holidays
maternity clothes? some of both. maternity is more comfortable, though
sleep: decent overall. i get up to pee 1-2 times per night
best moment this week: feeling movement on the outside
movement: yes, but not hard kicks yet
gender: we find out on jan 25
labor signs: none
belly button in or out? in but shallow
food cravings: tomatoes in balsamic vinegar
what i miss: i always miss champagne!
what i am looking forward to: finding out the gender in two weeks
weekly wisdom: splurge on a few nice maternity items. last pregnancy i bought myself more expensive jeans and loved them. they are still too big on me right now, so i need alternatives. i found some great skinny jeans that were way more than i'd normally spend, but i can wear them almost daily and i (think i) look good and thus, feel good.

mine only for now

when carrying a baby, that baby seems like it's all mine. i don't have to share it with the world and no one else gets to experience that individual baby growing like i do. it changes a little bit when the baby is born, but still. the workload, the largest share of love, the one-on-one time is all mine (well, ours, husband too!). and even though finley is almost three, i still think of him as an extension of me.

finn has croup right now and we let him sleep in our bed to monitor his breathing. we don't bed share and never have, so it's actually pretty sweet to sleep next to that warm little body, all wiggly and coughy. since our bed only seems big enough for one pregnant person and one other person, husband slept on the couch. so, finn was all mine. i have never gotten sleeping shots of him as he is typically a light sleeper and wakes up when his door is opened. i took advantage of the closeness and got a few treasured moments.

during the day while he lounges on the couch asking me to lay with him...again he is mine. i take that time to look at his face. his little chapped lips and his red eyes from the tears that well up during his coughing fits. i touch his pink cheeks and see his little teeth while he breathes with a tiny open mouth. i twist his curls and rub his soft back and i take all of him in.

today i looked at his palms. i wanted to see his tiny fingerprints (since my second baby is currently forming theirs). right now, these seem like my finger prints. not my own, but he doesn't know what they are and he doesn't think about them or use them, so they seem like mine. the pattern is clean and perfect, still fresh despite a few years of use. i can hold his little hands and look at them whenever i want.

but later (and yes, even now, technically) they will be his. he will use them for his own identification. they are his hands and i won't get to see them everyday, hold them and look at the swirls. they will become weathered with his life and not mine. i am watching him become his own person and each little milestone allows him to become more independent and free. less mine.

12 week ultrasound

we decided to do the "bun" screening to test for down syndrome and other trisomy disorders. i enjoy the ultrasound part of the process (of course!) and we got some great pictures of little baby 2.0. husband and finn were along and it was great to share that experience with the soon-to-be big brother.







the last one is the top of the head with tiny little hands! we did have a u/s at around 6 weeks and were able to see the little speck with a heartbeat and it was so amazing to see the changes in just 6 weeks. the baby kept bring its hand near its mouth like a tiny wave and did a few jumps. the heartbeat was 147 bpm. the bridge of the nose is present and the fold at the back of the neck was within the expected range.

to complete the testing, i had to produce enough blood via finger prick to cover 4 circles on the test strip. as i mentioned a time or two, i don't do well with blood. not at all. at my first appointment (where they take all of your blood and leave you with almost none) i asked to lay down first and in the middle (needle in) i got really sick and a passing ultrasound tech had to come in and hold a trash bag near my face while cooling my forehead with a wet cloth. i am embarrassed when this happens but i have no control over it and try as i might, i couldn't even make it through the finger prick without a scene. after i left the chair i was feeling sick but ok, but as soon as i walked into the main part of the hospital i got dizzy and confused. i handed my husband my water and coat and someone saw me struggling and offered to help. they pointed me to the bathroom and i tossed my cookies (err, salad, which is awful, honestly.). multiple times. over a finger prick!

i guess it was all worth it when i got the call a week later that my results came back fine and the baby's risk of having the tested syndromes were quite low.