18 Weeks Pregnant - entering my 5th month!

I know I say this every week, but every week feels like a milestone to me. I am officially entering my 5th month of pregnancy and it feels amazing to have made it this far.  

How far along: 18 weeks.

How big is baby: An artichoke. Ovia app: 

Weight Gain: -6 lbs. My MFM is worried about my weight loss. I find it a little funny that when I don't want to lose weight --> I'm losing weight. When I want to lose weight --> it seems impossible. 

Stretch Marks: No new ones yet. 

Symptoms:  

• Feeling uncomfortable. Before this week I haven't really felt any different physically. A few aches and pains, but nothing major. This week changed that! All of a sudden my stomach feels highly uncomfortable. I feel myself slouching and my posture is horrible. Certain sitting positions hurt. But it's weird because I don't really LOOK any different. 
• Pains in my tummy. I think I'm going through major round ligament pain. I've been getting these random pains and sometimes I need to just pause and let it pass. A part of me worries about it, but I'm sure it's all normal stuff. 
• Feeling heavy. My stomach feels really "heavy" and "full." It doesn't necessarily feel tight to the touch right now, but I think that's what's impacting my posture is the heaviness my tummy is feeling. I read that my center of gravity has changed with the extra weight of the baby. 

Sleeping:  I am absolutely loving my Leachco pregnancy pillow!! Love, love, love. It's so comfortable that I wonder if it'll still be comfortable post-pregnancy. I don't miss my old pillows at all. I sleep way better with the new pillow. The only issue I'm having is that I've been staying up way too late. I feel like I'm "nesting" or something. But I've been going through all my paperwork (my nemesis), getting my tax information together, filing, etc. Which is great and awesome I have the energy for that! At the same time, my need for productivity and to get things done is cutting into my much needed sleep time. Can't I be productive during non-sleep time hours? 

Food cravings: Nothing this week! 

Food aversions:  None. 

Maternity Clothes: I really do need to buy more maternity pants, I can't wear anything else right now and my pants are getting worn out. I'm doing OK with shirts, but do foresee me having a need in the near future. 

Movement:  Sometimes I am convinced I can feel baby boy dancing around in there. But once I focus on it, it goes away! 

What I did / Got for Baby: I've been really focused on certain things recently. One of those things is getting all my paperwork in order "just in case" something happens to me. So, this is for both of my kids. I'm in the process of organizing all my important papers/information into ONE place. I'm also creating a document called, "What my family needs to know" using a few different examples online like this one: https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/154946.pdf. This will be a work-in-progress for sure, but I really want to get this done before the baby is born. I already have most of our important documents in a folder in a fire proof/water proof safe, but it's not nearly where I want it to be. What I envision is --> if something happens to me that all they have to do is get this folder and they can run my household and have everything they can possibly need to take care of my kids. No need for anyone to search through my stuff or miss something, since it'll all be right there. 

Another thing I did was start a document, "Letters to my son." I'm doing this for both my kids. I've always wanted to write letters to my kids as they grew up and then present it to them when they are adults. I started one for my son once he was adopted. It's kind of changed from what I originally thought it would be. I tried a hard book at first = impossible to maintain. I then tried a blog = I found this impossible to maintain as well, more due to the app on my phone not working properly and constantly crashing. So now, I've started one for each of my kids in Google Docs. It's accessible on my phone or computer. The plan is to write special moments down, write them letters at special times, and then print/bind it for them when they're older. Maybe when they get married or go through a momentous moment. It's kind of my way of leaving a peace of me with them and to show them how very special they are to me. 

A little secret, I've been writing to my baby boy since I had started thinking about TTC and have a few letters while TTC, but those fell off as I started tracking everything on my blog. I'm in the process of combining those into my Google Doc for baby boy in a section called, "Before you were born." 

What I miss: Not checking my blood 6x's a day or injecting myself. Ugh. It's never ending. 

Workouts: Maybe I should take this out? :(  It's totally not happening. 

What I'm looking forward to: My anatomy scan! 

Best moment of the week: Finding Baby Boy's heartbeat on the doppler and having my son listen with me. He was excited to play with the doppler :) My son said, "Baby Brother's heartbeat!" 

Rants/Raves: Here is a rave. My mom is so interested in my pregnancy. It's kinda nice! She's always checking on me, asking about the baby, and checking up on my son. We're already planning for the holidays, not to mention she'll be here for a month when the baby is born. She wants to come visit her grandkids when she's off work in November and December. That's two months! I thought I would be concerned about such a long stay... but I'm actually grateful she wants to be so involved. I might even be able to pull my baby from daycare for two months and put my son in part-time, save some money as well. My mom is big on baby boy spending his first holiday season in his home and with family. I love that someone else loves my kids and wants to spend time with them as much as I do. I'm not really used to it, but I'm happy that my kids have their Lola and it fills my heart with so much joy with thoughts of watching their relationships grow. 

Appointments Next Week: None next week, which is so nice and rare!