My little acrobat has been very busy putting on the ounces! She now weighs more than 1 1/2 pounds and is about a foot long. From this point on she will gain about 6oz a week. She has even more muscle tone, and an incredibly good right hook. Babies are the most active between 24 and 28 weeks which Lucy has made perfectly clear. I'm not sure if it's just that I've been feeling her move for so long so it seems like more but she moves A LOT more than Roxas did. She gets going and my belly starts popping, jumping and rippling all over the place. Usually this happens when I'm trying to go to sleep. The skin is still pretty transparent but as baby fat starts filling in she will begin looking all cute and pink. Her lungs have fully formed but aren't ready to function outside the womb on their own just yet. The parts of her eyes are all there too, but for now they are fused shut. She is proportionally perfect now, a miniature version of herself on delivery day. I can't wait to meet her.
Some days I feel like a cow, and others I feel tiny, but one thing is for sure...it's going by incredibly fast. I've begun playing one of my favorite games that I really missed: guess the baby part! She really likes shoving her elbows and fists into my side so more often than not I can feel her by just pushing on my belly. This of course makes her kick and punch but I enjoy it. I've been having another run of particularly annoying braxton hicks, but so far they aren't causing any issues for us besides making me uncomfortable. I've managed to put on a little bit of weight now, a whole whopping 4 pounds! I'm enjoying this phenomenon now because I know in a few more weeks that scale is going to be telling me a different story.
It is really amazing to me how hard it is to wrap my head around the idea that there is another little baby in my belly. Intellectually I get it but until I actually hold her, see her, smell her...it will not be real. I still have a hard time believing we have Roxas, never mind the fact that he is a year old. We have a video of right when Roxas was born and even after watching it recently, I can't believe I was there. I mean, obviously I was, but I can't believe that was me and I had a baby. Really it seems more like somebody just handed us this tiny human. Then I can't believe I'm going to do it all again. Hopefully faster and with no Pitocin involved this time.
Thinking about all this got me thinking about all the life events we will see with Lucy. Images of a little girl getting to meet her favorite princess for the first time, dress up, tea parties and dolls give way to make-up, boyfriends and various talks. Then I see Kenny walking a fair-haired beauty dressed in white down an aisle with rose petals underfoot. Here is generally where the tears start welling up. Then maybe someday, if I'm lucky, the image of my baby girl with a baby of her own in her arms. Yup...there are those tears. Anyways, all of these ideas and thoughts swirl around my head but hardly ever seem real. I try to imagine how it will be seeing Roxas meet his baby sister, watching them grow up and flourish...but it's like trying to look through mud. It's not something you can know until you experience it. I'm excited, afraid, anxious, elated, euphoric and terrified all at once.
Just for kicks and giggles, the top picture is today and the bottom one is 24 weeks with Roxas.
Until next time...
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