No Time to Monkey Around... We're Growing Bananas! (Week 21)

Things change a little this week. From 1-20 weeks measurements have been taken from crown to rump. But this week they start measuring from crown to feet. This week also begins a slow down in the growth of the little one. The next fruit will cover a two week period and then after that we'll get a fruit a month instead of a fruit a week. I guess that's good since there isn't a whole heck of a lot more room left. From now on, Lily will be putting on weight more than growing in length. But right now she's a banana... how is that possible???

Now, don't let the mass or the weight of the fruit fool you. The fruit is only to show the length of the baby not the mass. So that's why we go from something big to something skinny. And again, we're now measuring from crown to feet instead of crown to rump which is why it looks like she jumped a bunch!

So, what's up with Ms. Lily this week?

"As your baby's digestive system develops, she will begin to swallow amniotic fluid and absorb small amounts of sugar.  However, most of baby's nutrients are still delivered from the placenta.  Inside your uterus, while there is still room, your baby is actively moving around, kicking and flipping positions.  You may be able to track patterns in her movement."

Unfortunately, since I have an anterior placenta (the placenta has attached directly to the front of my uterus), I still am only feeling "muffled" movement as if she were kicking and punching into a pillow. The got noticeably stronger yesterday though and hopefully we will be able to feel them from the outside soon. I keep putting Jay's hand on my stomach when I feel her, but so far he hasn't been able to feel any of it yet. I guess it's hard since I'm feeling from the inside. I'm probably imagining that I can feel it from the outside too. Oh well. All in due time, I guess.

How is Mommy doing? I'm doing well. Had some ups and down this past week, but that's to be expected in any pregnancy, and even more so with an unmedicated bi-polar. Nothing lasting more than a day, though, so nothing to worry about. This Sunday we went to tour the hospital. I have mixed feelings about the tour. Some of their procedures I think are awesome and very forward thinking, some concern me. But I'm going to write a whole other blog post about that.

My mom was home this weekend which was AWESOME! She's been working or in the mountains every weekend for about 6 MONTHS, so it was so nice to have her over for breakfast and then go shopping without having to worry about when she had to sleep so she could go to work.

Tonight is our second HypnoBabies Childbirth Class. I really hope I can stay awake. Last week I relied on the trusty ol' caffeine but slept like hell because of it when I did get home and then paid for it Thursday at work, so I'm going to pass this week. We'll see how it goes. We haven't done the practice as rigidly as we should have this past week, but we did do some practice and I love it. Last night Jay read the script to me and it was lovely. I did notice that I had a harder time relaxing though because I kept worrying about him being bored or tired or thinking the scripts were stupid. But that is something I'm going to have to get past. I have to learn to give myself permission to be selfish at times, this practice time being one of them. (Plus I know he truly is very supportive and happy to do it, but it's still hard for me.) When I'm in labor I'm going to have to be able to focus on me and Lily and relaxing and not worry about how Jay's doing, or if my mom, his mom or our friends are bored in the waiting room, of if I'm annoying the nurse by not taking the meds. I'm going to have to find my voice and be able to speak up and be an advocate for myself and Lily since I am delivering in a hospital and not at home which would afford me more flexibility.

It's amazing how much this childbirth preparation is bringing up. So may things to address and practice that go way beyond the hypnosis techniques taught in the class. I did talk with my psychiatrist about the program and he was totally on board! He said he thought it sounded like a wonderful thing and exactly what I needed! And he said that he thought the things I could learn from it would be beneficial way beyond just the childbirth.

Something really funny happened last night while we were practicing. When Jay was reading the scripts, Lily started dancing all around! I had to stop him for a minute and see if he could feel her but he couldn't. :-( But it was still adorable. I've never felt her move so much at one time. I think she really liked hearing her daddy's voice! That's another nice thing about him reading some of them because she gets use to hearing his voice even more.

I'm going to have to figure out a new schedule for taking my weekly bump pics. I've been trying to take them on Wednesday or Thursday nights after work, but that's not possible now that the sun is going down earlier. So, I'm trying to take them on the weekend. But that puts me in the middle of gestational week. Oh well.

Happy Wednesday everyone!