I'm now 19 weeks along. Only one more week until I find out if I need to bring all my baby boy stuff up from the basement, shop for girl stuff or both! We recently bought a new car that will accommodate all three kids. Yes, we bought a mini-van! I know that most people my age tell me to buy an SUV but I remember what it was like to drive with one baby in the car and having to climb into the backseat. There's no way I'm going to crawl into the back seat and then climb into the 3rd row backseat too! Also, even though we could put one baby in the second row and one baby in the 3rd row with Noah, it would be like having a two door car instead of a 4 door car. I would like to be able to go places with all 3 kids if I need to. If I had to do all that hassle with an SUV with folding seats down and everything, I would never go anywhere. Also, gas prices just jumped .15 cents in 2 days so that extra gas mileage will come in handy. Finally, our budget for another car was very small, trust me, we would love to feel cool in a nice SUV but they were all a few thousand dollars out of our price range, although we did find a Lincoln Navigator that we loved and was in our price range but it had 140,000 miles on it and only got 11mpg. I think we made a good decision. Plus, its only temporary.
This week I started a pregnancy fitness class. Just some light cardio and light strength training but I get to meet some other pregnant ladies and 3 of us are due in July. As of now we are all about the same size... it'll be interesting to see the comparison between us all as we get farther along. Tomorrow Noah starts his karate class! I'm pretty sure he won't be learning actual karate but he will like being able to punch and kick a bag or those hand pads at least.
Anyway, here is a picture of me at 18 weeks and the next pictures I post will be of my little ones.
Yesterday I had another Dr. Appointment. It was uneventful, and it seems like I'm getting less attention and information than I did with Noah. At Noah's appointments I got to hear his heartbeat and the nurse measured my uterus, but this time I get neither of those. Instead, this pregnancy I go into my appointment, get weighed and BP and then the Dr. uses a mini ultrasound doppler with a screen about the size of an IPhone to see babies. We also haven't established the "Baby A/Baby B" thing. So far I just have two babies and she says "the one on the left or the one on the right". So I guess I will have to identify them as Left and Right for now. When the babies came on the the screen Right was laying sideways and had a nice profile and Right's head was butting into Left's belly. We saw Right's heartbeat which was fluttering pretty fast although I can't hear it and the doppler doesn't say what the heartbeat actually is. Then Left decided he/she wanted some attention and turned head to head with Right and we got a nice profile and heartbeat view of her/him. The Dr. showed me the little line that separates them. It seems really thin, but was told that it was normal. So far baby Right is pretty calm and baby Left is very active, he/she is always moving around when I see them on the u/s doppler. Now I only have to wait 3 more weeks until my ultrasound where they measure everything. I will be nervous and excited for this appointment because I get to find out if they are boys/girls BUT I also get to find out if there are any complications, birth defects etc. Everyone hopes for a perfect pregnancy with perfect babies but sometimes that isn't the case. There are a million things I could worry about but I should just relax and worry if something serious turns up. I'm also on high worry alert because I am in a "Birth Club group" on babycenter.com and although many of the posts are positive and asks opinions about baby products and procedures, there are also a fair share of sad stories. I try to avoid reading them, not because I don't want to be supportive but because it just sparks more worrying that I don't need to do. So as of now, everything is going fine and pretty soon Noah will get to find out if he is having brothers, sisters or one of each.
I know that even though I am about 4 months pregnant some people would expect that I look like a house already, but I'm sorry. I think I still look like I ate a big lunch. My last pregnancy I wasn't this big until about 5 1/2 months. I feel like I should be bigger at this point, (there's two in there, I swear) but I'm expecting to be GIGANTIC by the end of this pregnancy, so I should definitely not take for granted my smaller "bump" at the moment. Apparently, the babies are supposed to have a growth spurt soon and I just might blow up any day now. So far I think its been a nice gradual growth. I know that some of you might have been expecting something a little bigger (which is why I haven't posted any pictures until now) but I'm sure I won't disappoint you later and it will be interesting to see how big I will actually get!
