Baby Update: Week 22

How far along? 22 weeks

Due date: July 22, 2013

Baby size: banana or a spaghetti squash,10 or 11 inches

Total weight gain: about 13 lbs or 6 kg, since I live outside the States - about 1 pound this week.

Maternity clothes: Same clothes + maternity jeans. I feel like I got a lot bigger this week though and I like to wear things that are tight and show the bump well. :)

Sleep: A couple mornings of waking up wide awake around 4:00, but otherwise I slept great. I had my first need to get up and use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Yippee.

Best moment this week: Our visit to the doctor for an ultrasound was on Thursday! So amazing to see our baby again and to know everything is developing as it should and the baby looks healthy. It was such a peaceful experience.

Movement: Strange nerve twitching continues, but it's nothing to pay attention to, I guess. A few times during church this week I felt a lot of strong movement. I think she likes the music!

Food cravings: Tuna & crackers, Chinese food (and I got it!), and lots of fresh fruit.

Symptoms: still easily tired (2.5 hour limits), aching lower back, need to use the bathroom a million times a day, and it seems like my gums are extra sensitive. And again, not one headache this week!

Gender: The doctor was pretty certain that our baby is...

A little girl! So thrilled to know that we'll have a daughter and to call her by name now! She was in the wrong position to see at first, but by the end of the ultrasound (and after the doctor had me step down and go use the toilet) she moved and we could see. We emailed this photo to our parents and siblings on Friday.

Labor Signs: Hopefully don't come for several more weeks!

Goals for the Week: After reading up in the pregnancy book that I have, I'm tracking my diet pretty closely. I need to eat more eggs, leafy greens, whole grains, and nuts. The amount of nutrients that I'll be giving the baby would grow so much if I just add more of these things to my diet. I need more exercise and stretching to help lower back pain, I think.

Feeling toward Pregnancy: I saw this picture this week and really liked it. I haven't disliked pregnancy, but if you ask Kenny, I'm not exactly a constant bucket of sunshine. I have enjoyed it so much since I began to feel the baby and grow...since I really felt pregnant, I guess. But this picture really puts this whole short experience in perspective, even from the beginning when things weren't as fun. Until now, it's actually gone by relatively quickly. I think the more I anticipate our daughter's arrival and imagine and pray for her, it will seem to go by slowly. It will be good to keep in mind that it is an honor and a joy to be able to be used in creating a miracle! I don't want to look back on it and not have soaked up all the "wonderment" and goodness.

What I miss: Nothing new to speak of, energy and sleep still.

What I am looking forward to: I look forward to seeing Kenny with his daughter. It's exciting to hear him talk about the things he wants to teach her,(top of the list is math, lol.) and the ways he wants to show her how special she is.

Fears or uncertainties to surrender: We put a little pink bow on our ultrasound photo to share the news in a fun way, but I am actually thinking that it might be one of the few times she'll wear pink or bows, as long as I'm choosing her clothes anyway. I've never been much of a girly-girl, but it's probably necessary to consider that ours might be and she might really love bows and frills and the color pink. I realize that I'm probably not how my mom dreamed I'd be, and my daughter will very likely be so different from the things I dream of in these months to come. But I am thankful my mom let me be me, and I hope that I'll be as great at letting my daughter discover and decide as my mom was. I hope I can follow her example and let go of little things like the outward easily and really value the inward, what truly matters.

Milestones: Finding out the gender is one of the biggest of milestones of the pregnancy! Exciting week!

Albanian Culture and Pregnancy Tidbit: I learned that Albanians say if a woman has a lot of heartburn, the baby will have lots of hair. I haven't had any - in fact, I asked my mom the other day what it feels like to be sure. She replied that if I had to ask, I probably haven't had it - I'll know. Maybe our baby won't have much hair though. So excited to meet our baby, full head of hair or not!