Week 17

 

Birthdays, weddings and arena football - another fun week with the bump!

Your Baby is as Big as a pomegranate!    

• Baby's rubbery cartilage is now turning to bone.
• And baby's growing some meat on those bones-putting on some fat.
• Baby's growing a stronger, thicker umbilical cord too.

 

Baby continues to beef up. Now baby's about 5.1 inches long and weighs about 5.9 ounces.
Try not to get freaked out by the numbers on your scale. At 17 weeks, baby’s working on getting stronger, and your body’s working on getting bigger. That means putting on some pounds and—we hate to break it to you—getting some stretch marks. Make sure you document your growing bump by taking lots of photos. Sure, you might not always feel so pretty, but one day you’re going to look back at pregnancy and reminisce (really—we promise).

Week 17 started with a trip into Spokane (you will see a theme here shortly), to celebrate my friends birthday with dinner at the Steam Plant Grill followed by and Inland Empire Arena Football game. I was very impressed that the Steam Plant offered a fully vegan entrée item on their regular menu! It is a treat for me to not have to be the crazy lady placing a custom order with the waitress. The arena football game was a lot of fun - kind of made me miss my cheer days to be honest... I can't believe that was over 10 years ago! My favourite part is just getting together with "my squad".  There are 6 of us girls who live in north Idaho and all met through the gym that have found a sisterhood with so many of us having families that live far away. It is not very often that we are able to get all 6 of us together at one time, but I cherish those occasions. Friends are the family you choose!

 

 

The next morning, I turned 31! No mimosa for me this year! In fact, the day started with a couple of dry-heaving bathroom sessions.... baby wanted to let me know it was thinking of me today! Thor and I headed into Spokane (#2) for David and Kelly's wedding rehearsal and afterwards we played in Spokane for a bit. We visited boots to share a pumpkin waffle and some fruit (Thor ate most of the waffle and I think I ate ALL of the fruit!), and then we went to get Thor some much need "casual" clothes from Nordstrom's. Thor felt guilty shopping for himself on my birthday and INSISTED that I find something for myself.... such a sacrifice! I rarely splurge on shoes that are not Payless or TJ Maxx, but I have to say, I'm a little obsessed with my new birthday shoes!

We were able to head back to home for a quick nap and time to get ready before driving back to Spokane (#3) for the Kielian rehearsal dinner. It is so much fun to meet the people that you have heard your friends talking about for years, it is also a little nerve wracking when those people meet you and say, "Samantha? Oh yes, I've heard stories about you!" The rehearsal went smoothly and everyone was excited for the following day!

 

Sunday morning was my 4th and final drive into Spokane for the weekend (yay!), of course it also happened to be the morning of Bloomsday, where over 50,000 people race around the streets of downtown Spokane, but it actually wasn't as challenging as I had feared. It was a beautiful sunny spring day and was an honor to be a part of the wedding.
 

 

 

 

The rest of the week was fairly "standard" and there is little to report on the baby front. I am feeling great, although my body more so than ever is a little restless and prefers movement to sitting. Teaching classes and exercising still feels "normal".  I am anxious for my last days of office work and to be able to spend more time organizing our home and doing yard work.

 

I am starting to have a little pre-baby anxiety, which is new for me since I'm not a very anxious person. I sobbed to Thor the other evening, "I don't know when the baby is coming, and I don't know what the delivery will be like, and I don't know how breastfeeding will go, and I don't know what kind of car seat to get, etc, etc..." I blame it on the hormones! I am hoping that as my work schedule slows down and I am able to get more prepared for the baby to actually be in our lives, this anxiety will decrease. If not I'll embrace the irrational sobbing- I actually felt a lot better after!

 

We are on the countdown to finding out if the love bug is male or female! Tune in to next weeks post for gender predictions!