Weeks 17 and 18

Lots of movement!  Mr. Artoo is definitely a kicker and roller.  I did start feeling Gabby this early, but her movements were less consistent.  It may just be that I know what I'm looking for now, but I have the feeling Artoo is going to give us a run for our money!  I feel him when I'm lying on my back, or when I'm sitting and relaxing.  He loves when I drink juice or eat something sugary (or maybe hates it--I can't read his mind).  I haven't felt him while I've been up moving around, just when I've been quiet.  So he's either asleep, or I'm so distracted that I don't realize he's moving in there.  I have to say, it's weird not being completely anxious for the anatomy scan.  With Gabby, we had no idea what we were having, so all of my posts are impatiently counting down to when we found out.  Now we know he's a boy and is as healthy as can be, so there's no pressure!  For the record, Artoo's anatomy scan is scheduled for July 2.

As you saw last week, there is absolutely no doubt that I am pregnant!  I had the first person who didn't already know ask me this past weekend at a birthday party when I was due.  It helps when I wear maternity clothes--they tend to accent the bump--but even in non-maternity clothes (which are becoming few and far between), it's still pretty obvious, particularly from the side.

I have to say, this second trimester in the summer thing kind of sucks.  I'm really glad to not be in my third trimester right now, but with Gabby, I was in my first trimester during the summer, so I hardly noticed anything.  Now I just can't take the heat at all!  I do my best to stay hydrated when it's really hot, but it's hard to remember to drink water when you're chasing around a toddler!

Only symptoms have been some indigestion and the ever present sciatic pain.  My hips sometimes feel like they are being pulled apart, and I've had several instances of lightening crotch (the name really says it all) and round ligament pain.  The yoga and walking (overall just being active) either helps or hurts all of the pains, depending on the day and how much I push myself.  The yoga does remind me to watch my posture, which does keep things more in alignment, so I'm glad to have those DVDs.  I'm really tired, but Gabby has been getting up before 7:00, and I rarely get home before 9:30 from work, so I'm having long days.

Work is going well.  I definitely made the right decision to drop lecture.  The 4 hours of lab is plenty.  I really enjoy both of the labs, and haven't found any students who make me want to rip my hair out yet (there's always 1 or 2 by this point)!  I feel badly for the person who took over the lecture--it's her first semester teaching (she's only TA'ed before), and she's not only teaching my lecture, she's teaching another prof's lab class!  That's a ton of work for your first time, especially during the summer!  I helped her out by grading some papers for her yesterday.  She's a sweet person, and I was happy to do it for her!

We're making progress on the room switch.  Brian has the computer and desk moved over, so all that's really in there is the treadmill and a cat tree.  Those should be cleared out this weekend, and then we can prepare to paint.  We haven't made a final decision on color yet, but it will either be a light pink on all walls, or white on most walls with a dark pink accent wall.  Brian found some Brave (Disney princess:  Merida) sheets online for cheap, so we have sheets for her big girl bed, but no big girl bed!  Gabby gets to use the dresser and nightstand that used to be in the guest room, and we may move her chair over.  We're looking into art tables for her room, too, so she has a place to color in there.  I think she's going to love it!  Although I'm not sure we're ready to transition to a big girl bed!!  She's gotten better about going to sleep, but I'm sure we'll have many nights of leading her back to bed several times before she finally gets the point.

Gabby is such a cute little person now.  Since I don't see her on M-W nights, I keep her home with me until around 9:00 and then take her to daycare in time for her second breakfast.  She loves to go into our room, turn on the radio, and have a little dance party.  Sometimes she'll put on her fairy wings and dance around.  It is awesome.  She's way into both Frozen and Brave, and will also watch Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  She still loves Yo Gabba Gabba, and won't go to sleep unless all 5 of the stuffed Gabbas we have are in bed with her.  She likes to hold her Nubby and paci when she sleeps, but she hardly ever puts them in her mouth.  She now needs a nightlight (the dinosaur one I put together when we were doing her nursery) to go to sleep, and definitely requires less sleep than before.  We used to get 12 hours out of her at night with a 2.5 hour nap.  Now, we get 11 hours at night and a 1.5 hour nap.  I guess I should feel lucky that we get a nap at all (not to mention that those are 11 straight hours with no wake-up)!  She has her share of terrible two moments (that make me wonder what the heck we're getting ourselves into by having another one), but she's really a very fun little girl, and I love her.

Weeks 15 and 16

16 weeks, please excuse the poor quality!

As you can see, I've definitely "popped" with this little guy!  I went back and read when I was pregnant with Gabby, and I thought I had popped at this point, but the pictures from then show that I very clearly hadn't!  It took until around Week 20 or so for strangers to really notice the belly with Gabby, but I was asked this morning if I was pregnant (it was one of the teachers at Gabby's daycare, so I didn't mind).  Actually, way back in Week 13 at the end of my spring class, one of my students said she knew I was pregnant because of my cute little bump!  I think she was just crazy, but now, as Brian said the other night, "It's starting to look like you have a baby in there!"  It's all still wardrobe-dependent, of course, but more often than not, it looks like I do have a baby in there, and not that I've eaten too many cheeseburgers!

No really terrible symptoms, except that the sciatica is back with a vengeance.  For those who don't know, your sciatic nerve runs from your spine down through your butt to your leg.  When it gets pinched (as is happening right now with my ever-expanding uterus and growing baby), it causes a burning pain in your rear.  I literally have a pain in my ass right now.  It's all I can do some days to sit for long enough periods of time to get anything done.  I remember this with Gabby too, and the only thing that really helps is regular exercise with yoga thrown in and sleeping with a pillow between my knees.  I do have to be careful with the exercise--if I walk without stretching (before and after), the pain is 10x worse than if I hadn't walked at all!  I usually try to walk on the treadmill and then do a yoga DVD afterwards.  It makes for long workouts, but keeps me from being in too much pain.  Fortunately, my summer schedule will allow me to keep up with this.  The only other complaints I have are the round ligament pain (from the ligaments that hold my uterus in place stretching), which is a sharp kind of stabbing pain in my sides (right more than left), and the fact that baby boy is parked on my bladder right now.

We are working on moving Gabby into what is now our office and turning her room into Artoo's room.  That means cleaning everything out of there, buying a new desk to fit in the guest room, picking out paint colors for there and Artoo's room, and eventually getting Gabby new furniture--including a big girl bed!  Brian tried to talk me into keeping Gabby in her room and putting Artoo in the office, but the office is much bigger, and Gabby is going to need a bigger room before Artoo does!  We'll deal with the jealousy over room size when the time comes.  Brian just didn't want to have to paint 2 rooms.  I don't win many arguments with him, but he let me have this one.

I start the summer semester next week, and I am so happy that I dropped the lecture!  I'll have 2 hours of downtime between labs, and I'll actually get to eat dinner and rest a bit before dealing with students again.  Plus only doing lab gives me both Thursday and Friday off every week!  At least one of those days is going to be spent grading lab reports (2/week is a lot of grading), but on the other day I can keep Gabby home and have some fun with her!  I'm not going to lie; it's been really nice not having to go to work for the past 3 weeks, but I do miss having something to do during the day.  There's only so much laundry that needs to be done, and daytime TV is terrible!

Gabby is super cute with this baby. She loves to talk about the baby inside mommy, and she lifts up my shirt to see my belly.  She gives my belly kisses sometimes, and talks about baby brother (or "baby brudder").  I know this love will change when the baby is here and taking up my attention!  She's already started transferring her loyalty to daddy instead of me.  Since birth, she's been all about mommy, but over the past few weeks, she's definitely started wanting daddy more.  I was a little hurt at first, but then I realized how much more free time I'm going to have and I got over it.  The only bad thing is that she now wants me to put her to bed.  That's been fine this week, but starting next week, I have 8 weeks of not being home at bedtime Monday-Wednesday.  It should be a very loud transition.  Poor Brian.

I'm proud of myself for posting semi-regularly, but we'll see how well I keep this up when classes start again.