Wine Down: Bumpdate {16 Weeks}

I think that this is the week of my pregnancy that I have been looking forward to the most. I have been dying to know the gender of our baby since the day I found out we were pregnant. Here is the post I wrote yesterday revealing the gender of our baby to the world: Baby Roche is a...

I am so happy that we were able to find out the gender at this time of the year. It has made our Christmas exceptionally special this year. We are feeling so very blessed. I've been holding off on doing too much of anything baby related until I knew the gender. Now, we can start planning the nursery, going shopping and monogramming! Other than being super excited about baby's gender, I am feeling great and loving pregnancy!

Week 16: December 18 - December 24

Week 16 Milestones:

- Baby is the size of an avocado this week! At our gender ultrasound (16 weeks and 2 days), baby was 6.5 inches long and weighed 4.5 ounces. The average baby at week 16 is usually around 4.6 inches and 3.5 ounces. Our baby is running a little large at this point, but I'm not really surprised because Jared and I were both really large babies (I was 9 lbs. 4oz. and Jared was 11 lbs. 7oz. at delivery) so I expect this one will probably come out pretty big too.

- I have officially gained about 10 pounds thus far during this pregnancy. I have now made it into the 150s which is a weight bracket that I have never seen before in my life and it's mildly terrifying. It's all for good cause though. A big baby is probably going to equal a big mama.

- I started sleeping with my giant pregnant lady pillow noodle. It's a little difficult to get my self wrapped up in it in the right position under the covers or to get myself untangled and find my way out, but once I get into the right position, it is so comfy. I feel like there is a lot of excess pillow with this thing though, so I have no idea how short women use it.. I happen to be tall enough to fill it out, so it's really comfortable.

- I have felt awesome this week! I'm so much more energized and just feeling great overall. The only symptom I have been experiencing a lot recently is the stretching of the muscles and ligaments in my uterus. I mostly feel it when I wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning. My lower abdomen just feels really sore. I guess my uterus does a lot of stretching while I'm sleeping so it feels sore when I wake up. I'm still not feeling any movement from baby yet, but the ultrasound tech said that, based on her size, I should probably start to feel her movements in another week or two.

- This really has nothing to do with the baby, but I found it interesting...I had an OB appointment today which was mostly uneventful except that I learned that my blood type is O negative. I never knew what blood type I was until now. My OB told me that I have "trauma blood", meaning if someone needs blood during an emergency and they don't know what blood type the person is, they give them blood that's my type. I'm a universal donor. Too bad drawing my blood is such a difficult process and I hate it. I should probably start going to the blood bank to donate.

- Food preferences: Everything is still pretty much the same. I am starting to get back into salads now, which is exciting because I love salad and I was a little sad when I couldn't stand eating it a few weeks ago. In fact, I've eaten a lot of salads this week. I feel like every week I discover a new food that pregnant me is really enjoying and I become obsessed with it, eating it constantly that week. Then the next week, I become obsessed with something else. However, my milk obsession is continuously unchanged. I still just cannot get enough milk. I think we need to invest in a dairy cow. I know that there are a lot of other ways for me to get the calcium I need, but for someone reason I crave milk incessantly...especially at night. I'm also really surprised that fruit still makes my stomach feel yucky. I think it's just too sweet for me right now. Don't worry though, I'm still infamous at my Publix bakery for my weekly cinnamon twist allotment. Fun story: I shared a sweet tea with my mom over the weekend and just that little bit of tea made me feel like I was on crack and kept me up super late that night. Mind you, this was the first sip of caffeine I've had since August. It was so delicious though, I just couldn't pass up a Sonny's sweet tea. The pregnancy fun continues.