Wednesday, June 13, 2018

26 weeks/6 months

How preggo I am: 26 weeks, about 6 months

6 month/26 week bump

This was my bump with Lyra, I'm surprised how similar I look this time around. I feel bigger but I don't think I'm as drastically larger as I was thinking. 

Baby size: Baby boy is about 14 inches long and weighs around 2 lbs. The vegetable comparison of the week is a scallion or butternut squash.

Food cravings/aversions: I've got nothing.

Other symptom: For once, my neck didn't really bother me on a trip (we just went to Michigan to see Travis' family). My intense chiropractor/massage plan may be working for my neck pain finally. My back is starting to hurt a lot more though, I can't be on my feet for too long.

I get a ton of kicks these days, my belly is always bouncing around. And my bellybutton is not an innie anymore. It's just like, half gone, half an outie.

Sleep: Lyra spent most of the Michigan trip sleeping in the bed with us again so it was occasionally nice for cuddles, occasionally frustrating because there's less room and more chance of broken sleep for everyone. She's settling back into the home routine though, thank goodness.

More stories loaded
Mood: Alternating between grouchy because I'm uncomfortable and it is getting too hot and feeling alright because my neck isn't murdering me anymore. I did decide that I don't think I get trimesters. At least not this magic second trimester. I usually hear you're sick for the first one, feel adorable and full of energy for the second, and the third you're huge and ready to be done. I get the first half where I'm sick and barfing and apparantly have killer headaches. Then I have like 14 hours where I feel cute and pregnant and not sick. Then i have the second half where I'm basically one giant Braxton Hicks contraction, I feel huge and the heartburn/acid reflux is constant. I still maintain this half is better than the first half though, by far.

Names: There has been much more uncertainty and indecision about this than with Lyra. Which is driving me crazy because I like when I have plans. Finley Oswin and Oswin Finley are this week's top contenders.

Lyra stats: So Lyra is having a birthday party in 2 months and I thought it would be a good idea to give her a few weeks to try and gauge what kind of party she wanted. Horrible idea. We talk about her truck party every day. Every day.

In between that we talked about the 2 airplanes she was going to fly on to go to Michigan. She was so excited for that this time around and did pretty well on the planes. It is always a long tiring time travelling but we're all used to it and good at it.

Lyra had a blast in Michigan with all the attention and relatives to hang out with. She even inherited a hand me down dragon costume. She will not stop wearing it. I'm gonna be that mom in the grocery store with the kid in the dragon costume. At least I won't lose her in the store.

Best moment this week: I got to meet a brand new baby alpaca which was neat. My in laws have an alpaca farm, by the way. I wish he'd been born like 2 hours later because then I could have seen a baby alpaca birth but still, it was cool to see a brand new baby. He was a big one at 22 lbs and I helped name him Coriander (his mom is called Cinnamon). My mother in law, who is also an OB nurse, even saved the placenta for me to look at.  That's how I know I'm as weird as the family I married into.

Other stuff: So the not super fun thing about this week was going to go see where Nova is buried. It was the first time we've been back since we buried her so I was a little bit of a mess. Pregnancy hormones probably didn't help that feeling either. I go back and forth sometimes between this feeling of "It's been almost a year, why does it still feel so bad?" and "It hasn't even been a year, how am I supposed to have moved on already?" Not to mention I think it is all compounded and dragged out from having two close together. Facebook pops up those reminders and memory posts. So I have been watching this year and seeing as those popping up, knowing what I posted the days I found out I was pregnant and when I miscarried. And watching myself try and be positive. I can definitely see how the first one didn't hit me nearly as hard as the second time around.

But anyway, Travis' family has been keeping the trail out to her grave clear. They moved a big rock onto the rock pile we made so it is pretty clearly marked from that alone. There is a marker though. They also moved a pine tree out and planted some flowers. Travis and I planted some more flowers so we will see how those all do, it's fairly shaded and there's wildlife around so some of the plants may not make it, but who knows. We planted tiger lilies (my favorite flower), amythest astilbes (they mean "I'll still be waiting"), lily of the valleys (they mean return to happiness). Fairly fitting meanings I suppose, we mainly tried to pick what looked like it might survive in a shady forest.



We finally settled on a name for the first baby I miscarried. Sojourner. We will eventually be getting a marker similar to Nova's and adding it to the rock at her grave. I just don't feel right without one but it has been an entirely different experience having had that miscarriage earlier, it was so different physically and I still don't know why or if it was a boy or girl. So it had taken longer to get around to dealing with that. It was almost like a triage scenario, deal with the grief from Nova's miscarriage, and now get around to this one that was a less traumatizing experience. But I like the meaning behind the name Sojourner. It does have a space connection, it means traveler. I've found a couple quotes I like a lot. "We are sojourners and not settlers for life on this earth." But my favorite and probably on the marker we will use a quote from Sojourner Truth, "I'm not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star."

Looking forward to: Getting to the 3rd trimester, sometime around week 27 or 28 depending on how you count things.