20 Weeks!

Our little tummy baby turned 20 weeks some time in the past few days, according to the tracker on my phone.  This pregnancy really is going fast and it is hard to think that if you believe in due dates (which we don't) we are almost "half way" to a baby in our arms!

"Showing my toys to the baby" - C

So, is it a girl or a boy? That's the big question everyone wants to know these days!  We had hoped to do a 20 week ultrasound this past week but the birthing center that I really, really hope I am able to give birth at (hinging on if we can get a discount there or not) up in Seoul was booked until the end of September so we are going to wait until after Steve gets back. We have an appointment for end of September to do the "big" ultrasound.

What do we think?  The first month of pregnancy, I was pretty convinced it was another boy.  Everyone seems to share that girl pregnancies and boy pregnancies are very different and judging by the first weeks, they seemed the same.  I was blessed again to not be extremely sick (mostly just tired and not hungry) and it reminded me a lot of Caleb's pregnancy.  But as time has gone on, there have been more differences.  I get a lot of headaches with this one, I seem to have zero memory this time around (something I never experienced with Caleb!)., I have worse acne, I'm more emotional, all I wanted to eat the first 12 weeks was junk food (not like me, although Steve enjoyed having chips in the house again! All I wanted with Caleb was citrus fruit), and probably the biggest difference I started noticing was that I am carrying really, really high.  The way my belly is growing is so different than Caleb (who was always very low). So if there is any validity to the old wives tail that boys are carried low and girls carry high then this is definitely a girl. Another difference is that with Caleb I felt him moving earlier, with this one I think I am just now starting to feel baby moving for certain...and not nearly as much as Caleb.  But that could just be a personality thing....at this point, it'd be pretty nice to have a quieter child...Caleb is all movement, high volume and activity right now...we could use a little chill baby around this house!

I'm overall feeling pretty good. I'm really tired but I'm also really low on iron so now that I'm working on that, maybe my energy will start to pick back up.  I am still not very hungry throughout the day (although not nauseous so that's a plus).  To be honest, I don't think about this pregnancy or baby a whole lot.  Life is so busy, Caleb is reaching new heights of energy, volume, activity level and power struggles, the adoption takes a lot of mental energy and we continue to delve into all we have to learn about before our Ethiopian baby joins the family and the weeks go by quickly.  I need to make the time to stop and think of this next little one and focus on this pregnancy before it is done and over!  I have enjoyed that I'm now able to feel some movement occasionally and that has brought little smiles to my face and little reminders that there really is a baby growing inside!  Baby movements have got to be up there on the list of wonderful things in life.

Baby  sucking thumb at 12 weeks, our last appointment