23 Weeks- Who hit fast forward?

     Twenty-three weeks and less than 120 days left until the due date! I kind of took that whole "everything in the second pregnancy happens bigger and faster" thing as an exaggeration. It's not. It seems like somebody hit my body's fast forward button. If I didn't know better I would think I was in third trimester- not second! I mean really, I feel a bit slighted here. I am supposed to enjoying three months of boosted energy, leveled out moods, and just generally enjoying pregnancy. Instead I'm putting on my compression stockings (oh so sexy), waddling like a duck, and watching my ankles slowly merge with my calves. It's a glamorous thing, growing humans. My belly seems like it is just growing more and more, inflating overnight. I am absolutely bigger this time. Looking back on my pictures from Roxas, the way I look now is about how I looked around 27/28 weeks then. On the plus side my hair has recently become incredibly soft, it's the little things right?

     Speaking of little things...Lucy is growing and growing and growing. The weeks between 22 and 24 are kind of hard to measure but she's about the size of a small doll and probably weighs around 1 1/2 pounds. She is working on laying down that adorable baby fat. Her vestibular system has matured enough to allow her brain to make sense of movements, and her other internal organs are all working hard on maturing too. We had our doctors appointment last week and the doctor measured just about everything there was to measure and she is growing right on track with her due date (hey, maybe she won't be late! Ha.) She is a happy and healthy little girl, she even took a few swings at the doctor while she was doing the ultrasound. Her heart rate is a nice 151, and if you believe old wive's tales...goes along with the "girl" side. According to the doctor she is still a little girl, so at least that fear is alleviated now. I know ultrasounds are never 100% but I'm 99.99999999999999% sure she is a girl, just from what I can see on the scans and what the professionals are telling me. I was a smidge worried that I was going to have a TON of pink stuff to return but alas it still looks like our future will still be very, very pink :-D

 This is her face, looking straight on

 A little foot (it looks huge because it's magnified)

 What we all wanted to know...still a girl!

     In other small human news, Roxas is growing up fast too. I know Lucy has kind of taken over the blog lately but Roxas is making all kinds of leaps and bounds too. He is now a professional at walking. He walks just about everywhere he can and loves it. For now it's not that much more of a hassle having him walk versus crawl. He gets into just about as much trouble. We took him to his very first Easter Egg hunt (since last year he was oh so tiny still) and he did great. I had been helping him learn how to pick up eggs and put them in his basket at home and all our training paid off! 

     He finally got a few more teeth, his top two teeth have come in and the other top two are hard at work making their break for the surface. Of course this means I have a VERY cranky little boy on my hands sometimes. It's one of the most frustrating things trying to help a teething toddler. You just can't explain to them why it hurts or what is happening and it sucks. He has been developing his own little personality. Testing his limits with us as parents with some rather undesirable behaviors like hitting and throwing things. Here I thought having a baby was hard...babies are nothing compared to toddlers!

     I have no idea how I'm ever going to figure out how to have a baby and a toddler coexist in the same house. Both needing my attention at the same time. I guess I'll learn in a few months. We still aren't sure what our final decision on the whole school thing is yet. Honestly for every "pro" I come up with there is also a "con" to it. It's a really tough spot to be in. My doctor said she would be fine letting me go back at 4 weeks post partum which would be if Lucy came right on her due date and no later. She even offered to induce me a week early to give me an extra week of recovery. That is absolutely not happening. No way. At all. EVER. First of all I'm vehemently opposed to evicting a baby before 40 weeks without a very good medical reason and secondly the risk of C-section goes up dramatically with induction and not only do I really just not want that but if I had a C-section...well that's a minimum 8 week recover time...and I couldn't go back to class anyways. Yeah. Not happening. There are just a lot of things to consider and it's a really tough choice to make. I've talked with several people about it and for now nothing is in stone but I'm leaning more on the side of deferring my semester. It's a lot of travel, I mean A LOT, so that really limits the amount of time I would be able to spend with Lucy. I'm blessed to have an amazingly supportive family who will bend over backwards to help us but will it be worth it to miss those first few months of her life? Will it be worth it to potentially lose out on a breastfeeding relationship? Will it be worth that crazy, insane, inhuman, amount of additional stress? Sure, I know I COULD do it...but would it really be worth it...just to be done in May instead of December next year? There are about a million reasons why and why not and we are still thinking and praying about it.

    That's all that is really going on for now. So, until next time...