the johnson family blog: 14 weeks

Baby bird is definitely growing! So is my ever expanding waistline. I still find it hard to believe how much faster I have started showing this pregnancy.

Second trimester has begun. Yay! I have left the nasty nausea behind, praise the Lord! The extreme fatigue isn't as "extreme" but I'm still waiting for the promised fantastic energy of the second trimester free from exhaustion. Maybe I'll just have to settle for not having a semi-comatose state of "functioning" though out my day? Maybe having a 10 month old means I'll never get that energy boost since I spend my days chasing her around? Maybe. But hopefully not! I'm thinking that once spring hits and we can actually enjoy fresh air and sunshine my energy levels will rise exponentially. It's been a long winter already!

Good news on the insomnia front... this week I haven't had any! Yay! Lord willing, it's gone (well, until the third trimester when I'm to big and uncomfortable to sleep anymore)! My new least favorite symptom? Headaches. I never get them not pregnant. Hormones do funny things to women. I hate taking medication while pregnant, even if it's OB approved, but I have caved a few times and taken Tylenol which seems to help. Otherwise, I try to drown the ache with glasses and glasses of water! Which is also good since I've already started having Braxton Hicks contractions. Lame. Not painful, but totally weird just the same. They usually happen first thing in the morning when nursing or playing with Viv. It's nothing a large glass of water and laying down (while I watch Viv take all the books out of the bookshelf) can't fix.

I've also started feeling this little squirt wiggle! I'm pretty sure I was 16 weeks when I felt it with Viv. I started feeling flutters around 13 weeks this time. Super fun! Baby bird is most wiggly at night... or at least that's when I'm actually still enough to feel him/her.

When I told my OB about the Braxton Hicks and feeling baby she said it seemed a bit early, but not unheard of for those things. Then I asked if I need to be careful with Vivienne and being rough with my belly. She said Baby bird was still pretty low in my pelvis and was really protected. Then she had me get up on the table to hear the heartbeat and then show me where my uterus was to prove it was low and small. Boy was she surprised when she already felt the top of my uterus near my belly button! She ordered an ultrasound for right after because she was convinced I was either having twins or my dates were wrong since I was measuring so big already! Had the ultrasound (which was awesome - love seeing the baby!), and there is just one baby bird (phew!) and he/she was measuring right on track for our Aug 11th due date. I always measured big with Viv, so that must be how I grow babies!

I felt badly that Brian wasn't at that appointment to see the ultrasound, but I actually was a volunteer for an ultrasound on Sunday. It was Sanctity of Life Sunday at church, so they wanted a live baby to show to the college students in Sunday school. Brian and Vivienne were there, so they got to see Baby Bird wiggling and waving. It was pretty cool to be a volunteer for that. Unfortunately, I was unable to see the screen because I was behind a partition and the ultrasound tech had the computer aimed at her. So Brian and Viv got to see the baby first! Super fun then to need an ultrasound just days later so I could see too! Yay!

Here are some pics of Baby Bird, who can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his/her thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his/her facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. He/she measures 3 1/2 inches, about the size of a lemon, and he/she weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His/her heartbeat was 153 bpm. Love!