26.5 weeks

Sorry to be MIA since early April; I guess it feels like not a whole lot has changed. Acorn continues to do the can-can pretty much daily, which I'm getting used to and still feel with some amusement. Acorn's strength has clearly increased because Steve has finally been able to feel him/her consistently, at one point even growing wide-eyed when the kid gave him a good, solid, undeniable karate chop. Steve being able to feel it has been one of the more gratifying moments.
I think I mentioned to some of you that at the ultrasound we found out that I have an "anterior placenta," which simply means that instead of attaching to the back wall of my uterus it attached to the front. This doesn't cause any harm, but because the placenta is a cushiony mass of nutrients and tissue, it did make it harder for Steve to feel Acorn moving from the outside, and may have been why it took me a while too. (The placenta should not be confused with the amniotic sac, which is what the baby is actually "in"; the placenta is attached to it but does not itself surround the baby.)
And at one point I was watching tv and was able to see my belly moving from the outside...which to be honest is kind of creepy! We're not talking seeing hand or foot imprints or anything, but it is indeed very odd to have my belly, which is pretty solidly a belly these days*, twitch erratically before my very eyes. I'm still waiting for the dog to notice. :)
In the next week or so I will do the gestational diabetes test, which I'm hopeful will come out negative, and be able to put that concern to rest (or address it, if need be, but after all my caution and concern around sugar, I just want to know).
And then I'll graduate with an MSW and be able to truly focus on my own health, well being, emotions, and planning planning, planning.
And then in late June I will go for my last appointment in Denver at 32 weeks, after which my mom and I will drive the Subaru on over to CT, where I will start new (YAY!!!!) health insurance courtesy of my new employers and will begin going to the OB more frequently for checkups. Steve will hopefully be shortly to follow.
And as of 36 to 37 weeks, this baby can show up any darn time it wants. But no sooner. Y'got that, Acorn??**
Oh but that does remind me, now is about the time in my pregnancy where my body tests out the occasional Braxton-Hicks contraction, and boy are those bizarre. A painless but noticeable tightening of the uterus. I think of them as practice runs for my body, and they are so far easily mitigated by lying down and drinking extra water. I only wish ALL of my impending labor could be as easy!

*I know I'm overdue for more recent belly bump photos. We'll post some soon.
**I am willfully unconcerned about pre-term labor; between my mom and aunt carrying past their due date and a study done on upper-middle class Caucasian women in CT that literally statistically shows they usually go at least a week over their due date, I'm feeling pretty calm and collected.

It's a...baby!

We had the 20 week ultrasound today (a week late, but both we and the OB were on vacation last week) and were successful in our desire to avoid unintentional viewing of any tell-tale parts. No gender news for you!
Highlights:

• Getting to see it again, at all. It seemed huge compared to nine weeks!
• Hands, fingers, feet and toes, all flexing and waving! This time it actually looked like a baby!
  
• At one point s/he literally waved his/her hand at us!
• The bone structure -- the spinal cord in particular was startlingly beautiful, and we could see tibia and fibula and radius and ulna and cranium and ribs...like a little cathedral hidden inside.
• Our OB was able to rule out Trisomy 18, a condition which is so fatal that babies don't survive in the outside world. We couldn't afford the blood test (which was not covered by our insurance, sigh) so it was a relief to have another method to rule it out. She also did not see any indicators of Down's Syndrome, although the absence of visual cues does not rule it out completely.
  

I won't bother to post the print-outs we got because they're nondescript to the untrained eye, and seeing them on a computer screen will only make them even harder to read. Also, the little tyke wouldn't give us a solid profile. Seeing the baby face-on during an ultrasound is VERY odd, because bones read better than flesh, so basically we got the shadowy outline of the shape of the face with the skull clearly defined within it. Like a little zombie baby!

So far there are no indications to the contrary that this baby is healthy, growing appropriately, and will be fully formed and ready to meet the world when the time comes!

One more quick follow up

For those of you who were worried, the back pain which I mentioned in this post in March resolved itself within a week -- it really was just a matter of getting a little more exercise and doing some additional stretching. I've had no more back pain to speak of and while I do get odd aches and pains, nothing persistent, severe, or unusual.

21 weeks...

...means we're past the half-way point. Put on your helmets people, only 19 weeks to go, give or take.

Latest bump photo plus gender gossip

This photo was taken at the Bushiribana ruins in Aruba, and you need to be ready for it, because it is pure, undiluted, unabridged BUMP:

For those of you who take your bump neat.
Also, as far as everyone who decided to share an opinion was concerned, this baby is a boy.
It all started with my mom, Nancy, in February: "If by the second trimester you can still get your pants up over your butt and button them, it's a boy." (21 weeks in and I am still able to wear my jeans, though they are a little pinchy-pinchy right under the bump.)
Aruba did nothing but verify her opinion:
Taxi-driver from airport to hotel: "Girl-babies fight their mothers all the way, they make them really sick and fat all over. You must be carrying a boy."
Waitress at resort restaurant (after making me stand up): "It's a boy. It's pointy."
Divemaster for Steve's first night dive: "They say in Columbia that girl-babies steal their mothers' beauty. (Realizes she's treading VERY dangerous water.) SO you MUST be carrying a boy! (Big smile.)"
When we first found out I was pregnant, Steve and I both had the instinct that it was a girl; so far we have little folk-loric evidence to support the claim except that instinct. Since we have decided to keep the gender a surprise, only time will tell. We have our next ultrasound this Thursday; expect more photos soon!

The emotional process, weeks 13-21

This pregnancy has been mild in most every respect, and I must say I'm aware that this mildness includes my emotions -- I have been pretty much mostly myself.
Mostly.
Only, I cried when I got a B+ in my research class last quarter.
And I cried when Steve stayed out a little later than I expected.
And if I bump into inanimate objects I have a tendency to punch them.
And I am filled with love for Steve like those very first months, only with the familiarity of the last six years making it that much sweeter.
Much like Acorn's thunka-thunking, these peaks of emotion are still very much intermittent, but from the bigger picture they are more frequent and their onset more sudden.
So there you have it -- no pregnancy is a cake walk, but I'm pretty sure I'm walking on cupcakes, which I'm feeling very lucky about.
Feeling lucky is probably my number one emotion since we got that big fat positive 5 months ago.

Morse code for NERD

So the flutterings of many weeks ago were a false alarm -- merely butterflies. About a week and a half ago I felt an odd sensation -- not a muscle spasm, not a butterfly, not a gas bubble or borborygmus -- just like someone took their pinky finger and poked at a muscle. Only from the inside of my uterus. Whoa! These sensations have continued intermittently over the many days that followed, and I can now confidently say Acorn is trying out his/her new limbs. It's very odd and kind of amusing. Steve has even been able to feel it a couple times.
Only, if one ascribes any meaning to the timing of these occurrences, then Acorn is a NERD.
First time I felt it I was playing World of Warcraft, a nerdy online multiplayer game that has turned about 10 million people worldwide into nerds.
A lot of activity while watching A Beautiful Mind, a movie about famous mathematician John Nash.
A lot of activity while watching the X-men Wolverine movie.
And a lot of activity while a family of six sang *terrible* karaoke on Piet's Pier while I waited for Steve to get back from a night dive.
Let's see, computer games + mathematics + a movie based on a comic book + karaoke = NERD.
But was there every any doubt of that? Really?
(Shut up, Fred.)