Mrs. Priss

There is not much to report, other than the fact that this girl is an absolute wiggle worm.  I never get tired of watching my belly jump though… and it’s sort of becoming an issue.  The other day she kicked me hard while I was sitting at the front desk at work, so I lifted up my shirt to see if I could catch her in the act (I know, super classy), and the mailman walked in.  AWKWARD.

Look at you, mama, you’re growing! How much have you gained?

and

Your belly has gotten big all of a sudden. It looks like the baby has dropped. How far along are you again?

- The obnoxious male janitor who considers himself the pregnancy expert because he helped deliver 6 babies while in Vietnam. Seriously. And to answer your question, dude, I have over 3 months to go. She has not dropped.

When are you due? Like, any day now?

- Cashier at restaurant. And hi, I know I’m 6 and a half months along, but I’m not even that big!

I don’t consider myself overly sensitive to most of the things people say and realize there are some things that just come with the territory. Pregnancy is like having a spotlight shining on your life, inviting everyone to come and see the show. Unless hiding out for 9+ months and giving birth in a cave appeals to you, you’re not getting out of it, Sister.

Belly rubs, stares, and comments of all sorts are just a part of the experience. And normally, I pretty much love the attention! I realize this will probably be the last time anything is all about me, which honestly upsets me a bit, haha.

The only real issue I have are the flat-out rude and unnecessary things some people let loose without any concern for my body image issues (and no, those don’t magically disappear when you become pregnant). If you were to comment about a woman’s weight or size under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be acceptable, but that sweet little baby bump seems to welcome it all.

Call me “cute”, “glowing” and rub my Buddha belly all you want, but try to keep the ‘chunky’s to a minimum. Thanks, lady!

Have any of you experienced anything similar? I’m sure even those of you who have never been pregnant have had someone say something about your body that was just plain rude. Let’s relive all those cruel and awkward moments in a very public way, come on! :)

This entire pregnancy has been one countdown after another. With a lady-cycle that operates like clockwork, I found out I was pregnant the day Aunt Flow was supposed to arrive. Needless to say, it’s been a long 20 or so weeks since then, and I have to admit that I have never been fully content with any of the wonderful stages of pregnancy I’ve made it through. I’m constantly looking forward to the next exciting thing!

I can remember at five weeks, I couldn’t wait to be twelve weeks along so I could share the news (that ended up not making a difference because I couldn’t wait 7 minutes, let alone seven weeks to tell EVERYONE IN MY LIFE, including my mailman… and you think I’m joking).

When I hit twelve weeks, I absolutely couldn’t handle not knowing whether it was a boy or a girl. Finding out about Miss Madelyn at seventeen weeks was the greatest thing, but still, I was aching to be really showing and feeling those little kicks. Well, now all these little milestones have come (and more — I’ll spare you the scary and hairy details) and are just a normal part of life. I’ve been sitting at my desk for the past hour and have felt her moving and wiggling almost the entire time. My regular visits to Target’s shoe displays have been overridden by the trips to the Baby and Maternity sections. Okay, that’s sort of a lie, but I do spend significantly less time shopping for shoes!

Throughout this whole experience, 25 weeks stuck out in my mind as the ultimate milestone. Why I chose that number, I have no idea… but it always seemed so far away and I felt I’d never get there.

Ta-da! I’m here! Only fifteen weeks and a little over 100 days to go until I meet my darling little daughter. Gosh, that still sounds so crazy.

Madelyn is nearly 2lbs, and I'm convinced my boobs each weigh about the same.

Someone’s GROWIIIING…

Okay, I don’t know if you all can tell, but it really seems like this belly of mine blew up over the past week.  On Saturday morning when I was laying in bed, I looked down at my stomach and BAM — it was like it popped out 3 inches overnight.

You know when you’re really bloated, but you can still lay on your back and your stomach flattens out?  (Is it just me that completely obsesses over having a flat stomach?)  Yeahhh, that doesn’t work anymore.  It’s exciting, though… I feel like I’m actually progressing in this whole pregnancy thing when I can see myself changing so much.

Yesterday, Justin and I went to the children’s hospital to have a fetal echo done, which is basically an ultrasound to look at the baby’s heart.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but Justin’s little niece was born with a heart defect (she’s a perfectly healthy toddler now and completely adorable, so no worries!), so my doctor has been taking a few precautions to make sure our little one doesn’t have anything similar.

Our BIG ultrasound was actually VERY big — we were sent in to see a lady who specializes in genetic abnormalities and multiples, and had a very lengthy scan done.  Seriously, they gave Justin and I somewhere between 20 and 25 pictures of just about every part of her body (they even did a cross-section of her brain, which kind of creeped me out).  Thankfully, nothing was wrong with Madelyn, but yesterday’s appointment just laid to rest any worries we had about heart defects.  Praise the Lord, she’s perfectly healthy.

In more uplifting news (sorry about the complete buzz kill, haha) I was thinking about trying to catch her movement on camera because OMG YOU CAN TOTALLY SEE IT FROM THE OUTSIDE NOW.  It’s full-on Alien status.  We’ll see if she cooperates later on tonight. :)

Congratulations to Talia, who just found out some very happy news!  I think we can all agree that this 3rd little one is going to be completely, out of this world adorable.