Quite possibly - a boy!

We had an appointment last week, at 18w5d, and the doctor decided to do the first round of the anomaly/anatomy scan. It's pretty nice that he does it at least twice, around 20 weeks - he says it's more reliable that way, since it gives him a chance to compare the growth, amongst other things. Everything measured perfectly, and no abnormalities were noticed. The little one seems to have legs a few days younger, and arms a few days older which, if you know what Derek and I look like, makes some perfect sense.

And then, we got to see the crotch. I am fairly sure all the right parts were dangling between the wide-spread legs, but the doctor decided to stick two questions marks in the picture he printed for us. He said he'd go with only 75% boy. Mmk.

Either way, here's the picture we got, and I have to admit I can barely tell what any of the body parts in it are. It was all a lot clearer on the actual screen, seriously! (I apologize for the quality, it's a photo of the printout. The scanner is upstairs and I am lazy, okay?)

I've been feeling mostly fine. The main (or kind of only) thing bugging me is lack of sleep. I fall asleep pretty much immediately, but the bathroom things tend to mess me up, as I'm not at all used to getting up in the middle of the night. I sleep with a huge body pillow, because I can't figure out how to sleep without one, so that wakes me up, too - it's hard to turn around without reorganizing the whole environment, and I often overcook hugging the fluffy thing, too. For whatever unknown reason, Kittica begins her meowy ritual between 5 and 5:30, so that's usually another reason for me to get up, get her, and bring her back to bed. She eventually then falls back to sleep, too. And so do I, but not for long. (Yay, work.)

My yoga class is on break right now and the new session starts in about a month. Lame, because I need to find a different activity to commit to. It's pretty nasty outside, so walking is often a big fat no, and I still haven't found anyone willing to come along, either. I might go back to water aerobics at the Y (the doctor said it was perfectly okay and safe in my case), but I need to figure out first what to wear. I've tried a few maternity swimsuits, but I have to admit I don't really understand them. The low-cut bikini bottoms tend to roll down and fall off, while the top either doesn't hold those overinflated parts, or the whole thing rolls up like a crêpe would. I was bigger back in the day than I am now, even with the bump, so my old ones are actually pretty decent in size. It's again that one particular part of the body (or in fact two of them) that just refuses to cooperate. We'll see what happens. If everything fails, I'll just wear some sort of a blanket or an astronaut suit, or whatever, really. 

Here's an update on what I look like, just in case someone hasn't been to my Facebook page, or my forum, or everywhere else where I've been constantly spamming my own (or our kid's/cat's/house's...) photos:

4w2d, 9w6d, 13w4d, 18w2d

I don't know why the bump looks so small, compared to the one from five weeks back. It's most definitely bigger in reality. My last official weigh-in, at the appointment last week, said: 2200 grams (4 lbs 13.6 oz) more than the starting point. I guess that's okay for 18w5d, even though I seem to have gained another 200-300 grams since. I have to admit I hate watching the numbers go up on the scale, even though I know it was bound to happen and that, well, it simply has to. I've not been counting calories for a while, but I am well aware of what I eat, since I know the value of just about any thing I consume. The daily intake is definitely higher than what it used to be and I'm not anywhere near the excercise regime I was on prior to the bump days, but I am not a couch potato either. So that's good, too. Weight's been good, blood pressure's been good, no glucose has been found in the urine, so for now, we're doing fine. I guess they'll be scheduling my OGTT in a handful of weeks, so we'll see how we're doing on that front. (Ick, I say. I've had that thing before and I find it to be one of the most disgusting things I've ever had in my life.) 

I do have a confession to make, though. I drove to McDonalds tonight and bought myself a Happy Meal. Yup. I ate my little burger and I got a little funky toy. I chose the crappy artificially sweetened lemonade, as I didn't want anything with bubbles and I still don't know if the US fast food chains even carry orange juice, or something similar to that. I laughed my ass off when I saw what else was in my package - a sampler of fries (seriously, that was a joke) and a few slices of apple. I don't actually know if it'd mean anything to you if I said the apple package was worth 15 calories. They call that a healthy meal, just to let you know. I'm not sure if this was my first craving ever. Probably wasn't, because I didn't really feel like I had to have the damn thing. I just had no clue what else to eat for dinner, or something.

On Sunday, I prepared the first dish from my new Somali cookbook. I chose to go with Mallaay Toonno, which happened to be a tuna steak, cooked with tomatoes, garlic and onions, fresh parsley and served with rice. We don't really eat white rice, so I chose Chinese black, also known as forbidden. The meal was awesome. And healthy. So I made sure to undo the benefits by munching on my McDrek. (lol)

We'll be eating this again, just with more veggies.

We started remodeling the upstairs the other day, too. The carpet for the hallway, spare bedroom and staircase has been picked (rusty red!). We also know what some of the wall colors will be, as well as the floor in the kid's room. The old bathroom has left the building today, too. Too bad they took the old bathtub to the dumpster (they even cut it in half!!) - now I can't turn it into a cute little sanctuary, or something, that I could place at the beginning of our driveway...

Ok, ok, I'm joking, just in case someone thought I would really do that, for real. 

Most of the construction is being done while we're at work, so that's good. I have to admit I'm not a big fan of noises, such as drilling, hammering and whatever else comes with tearing down some walls, for instance. We need to figure out the tiles for that bathroom and, for some reason, I'm slowly running out of ideas. Might be just a slight case of information overload, or something. 

Another piece of news: I've met some new people. Odd, huh? I guess weirder things have happened. I went to a babywearing gathering some weeks ago, and then right after to a Homebirth Q&A meeting. Even though I don't plan to give birth at home, it was very nice to meet some people who are a lot like me and to learn some new things. I hope I'll see them all again!

Now that I look at this post, I'm kind of thinking I should update the blog more often, huh? This way, I keep jumping from one thing to another. But oh well?