23 Weeks Pregnant!

This week was pretty boring, where pregnancy is concerned -- which is GREAT! I wish I had more boring weeks of being pregnant.

There is one thing I noticed this week though, I was a little depressed. I started looking into antenatal depression. I'll do a separate entry on it, but I did want to mention it here. It's strange because my pregnancy has been really stressful and my anxiety has been through the roof with all the uncertainty. Although I've been worried, stressed, and full of anxiety -- I haven't been depressed at any other point in my pregnancy. For some reason this week, that changed. I started feeling extremely down and cried a lot -- not necessarily related to the pregnancy, but just other life things that used to get me down in the past and that used to cause me depression. I wish I could say it's just hormones, but I've had emotional moments being pregnant and this was totally different and way more intense.

Anyways. It's something to think about and I'm definitely going to ask my MFM about this at my next appointment. Too many scary thoughts on what antenatal depression can do and how it can impact the baby. Will explore all of this later...

How far along: 23 Weeks, 1 more week to viability 

How big is baby: A Grapefruit. Ovia app: 

Weight Gain: -2 lbs (with clothes on) 

Stretch Marks:  Nope. 

Symptoms: 

• HOT FLASHES. I've had hot flashes before from my TTC medicine and from being pregnant... but they just stepped up a notch this week, like dripping -- so gross! 
• Another thing is, I've been having weird pains in my hips and if I move too fast, pains in my tummy like muscle cramps. 
• I'm also still very tired and get exhausted pretty quickly. 2nd trimester energy, yeah right! 
• What's also kinda weird is, if I look at my stomach, I can see my heart beat - my skin shakes from it. Not sure if that happened pre-pregnancy as I never sat there and starred at my stomach before. LOL. I've been looking at my stomach more trying to see if I can see the baby move, I haven't yet. 

Sleeping: Not sleeping so well. My son's had an ear infection and pink eye this week. When he's sick, he ends up waking in the middle of the night and sleeping in my bed. I'm usually a little more strict about him sleeping in his own bed, but I've just been too tired to fight it. Also, I've found he sleeps longer on the weekends if he's sleeping in my bed -- so small perk. Like instead of being wide-awake at 5am, he's been sleeping until 7:30am. It's been lovely. Too bad he snores a ton though. I've been considering the co-sleeping thing and needing to stop this before it becomes an issue before the baby comes. But... the combination of me being tired and my son being sick and the extra benefit of extra sleep -- I'm just highly unmotivated right now. I will look at this again after he's feeling better and if he ends up still sneaking into my room. 

Food cravings: Cookie dough ice cream....!!! 

Food aversions: Vegetables? Argh. I wish I could say that I've been eating really well. I have done really well on limiting my carb intake (for the most part) -- but I haven't been able to increase my vegetable intake. I wish I craved broccoli vs cookie dough. 

Maternity Clothes: Same ol, same ol - nothing new. 

Movement: Feeling the baby move a lot at certain parts of the day. Still waiting to feel it on the outside. He reacts most to my son's voice and when I'm humming. I also noticed him kinda "jump" when my son yells, like he got startled or something. 

I have to say that I've felt more bonded to baby boy this week. I'm starting to imagine what life will be like once he's here.

What I did / Got for Baby: A nice SMC sent me some pregnancy books! I wish I had the "Your Pregnancy and Childbirth" from the start, lots of good information in there. Very sweet and nice of her to send these over :) 

I'm also made progress in the baby's room. I have sorted through all my son's Newborn, 0-3 month clothes, baby shoes, and baby socks. I am donating a ton to Goodwill that either is a bit stained or totally out of season. To my surprise, I think I may be pretty good with clothes to start off with and don't anticipate really needing much more until we hit next winter (my son's clothes are all opposite seasons). I also "found" a bunch of NB clothes that were hidden in a bag that I forgot about -- and all of those are summer appropriate. So yay for that! I am going to need some summer swaddle blankets, but that's about it. I have to admit that I had some nostalgic moments while going through my son's baby clothes! I can't believe he was so very small where NB clothes were too big on him. My sweet boy, he's growing up too fast. 

I've been thinking about how I'm going to keep the baby in my room when he's born. I've tried a few different configurations with my foster babies from using the pack-n-play, to sleeping in the rock-n-play, to sleeping in the bouncer, to sleeping in a bassinet, etc. Different things worked for different babies, of course. What worked best was: the rock-n-play. The one issue I have with the rock-n-play is that my bed is so high, so it was hard to stay in bed and pick up the baby -- I'd have to get totally out to get the baby. Which you're probably wondering, so what, right? LOL. But I'm assuming it'll be harder to get in/out of bed after giving birth (with recovery) and I'll have to get up more often since I'm planning on breast feeding, so it'd be easier to have baby close enough to pull into bed with having to get out. 

Now, I'm leaning towards getting a co-sleeper... I want one of those that sits independent from my bed, but high enough to be level with my bed - so I can see baby boy and bring him into my bed for feedings. I *was* going to just go with a fancy pack-n-play... but with those - you still have to get out of bed. Also, looks like the co-sleeper I want to get can be used to up to 25 lbs or so, so maybe make it to 4-6 months (depending on how quickly baby grows). Which would be perfect, as I normally keep the babies in my room until 3-4 months before transitioning to the crib. 

What I miss: Being able to take deep breaths comfortably. It's so weird, when I take a deep breath, it's like I can feel the size of my uterus or something. Probably because my organs are all getting pushed aside to make room for the baby. 

Workouts: I went for a walk this week -- and it totally exhausted me! Sigh. I tried! Only if my schedule would clear up a bit so I could make more time for it or have more energy. 

What I'm looking forward to: Hitting viability next week...!!! 

Best moment of the week: I decided to listen to the baby on the doppler. I don't do it that often since I have so many appointments. But when I have a week of no-appointment, I like to listen to his heartbeat for some peace of mind. It was kinda cool because I felt him move and also heard it on the doppler! 

Rants/Raves: Rant -- I've been a little "out of it" after my bleed. It took me awhile to get passed the fear - worry - and anxiety of that horrible experience. I've also been busy... from being sick, to my son being sick, to my pregnancy fatigue, to fixing up the baby's room, to night potty training my son, to my busy work schedule (lots of big projects and deadlines), to the possibly antenatal depression -- I just haven't been very social. And to be honest, I just don't have any extra energy right now. 

I have one friend that I normally speak to very frequently, but lately I just haven't been wanting to speak on the phone. She started leaving me messages like "are you mad at me?" I texted back with "no, not mad -- just busy." Well, she KEPT calling at bad times - so I didn't answer my phone and she KEPT leaving messages that were in increased urgency of "I know you're mad at me!" Each time, I texted her back and said, "Not mad, just tired" or something - I never left her hanging and always responded. Like one time my son was watching Netflix on my phone, while I was working on the baby's room -- she called and my son freaked because his show wasn't on anymore, so I declined her call. Her message was like, "OMG, I can't believe you declined my call. I know you're mad" blah blah. 

Then she texted me again with "I know you're pissed at me." Well... at this point -- I was freaking annoyed with her. Like WTF. How many times do I need to reassure a friend that I'm not mad, that I'm just tired and busy?! So I completely snapped at her via text and now I'm totally contemplating my friendship with her. Like, why can't she just take my word that all is OK? Why does she have to create drama when no drama was to be had? Why is she trying to guilt trip me into feeling like I did something bad, when I'm just dealing with my own life? Why does she have to make things about her? Like her constant message was "I know you're mad at me. I don't know why you're mad or what I could've done to upset you." 

My other friend said she thinks she's a "high maintenance friend." I've started thinking about that and I think she's right. Right now, with so much going on in my own life -- I just don't have the energy to extend to her or to constantly reassure her. And honestly, why should I have to? We're friends. If I'm busy, what's a few days without constant contact? It's not like I was 100% out of contact anyways, I was texting her pretty consistently during the time she kept accusing me that "I'm mad at her." Well... now I am and she is probably mad at me now too! Argh. It's like, she's been a good friend to me -- but now I'm just not so sure about our friendship going forward. I've felt like I've had an emotional few weeks -- I need understanding and space, not accusations and drama. 

Appointments Next Week: Valentine's date with my MFM for a fetal echo.