Well, I've made it to 20 weeks! 5 P17 shots down, 15 to go! Baby girl is measuring great...almost a pound in weight. This morning she kicked Ava's hand four times in a row, although Ava said she wasn't kicking, she was signing. Who knows! All I know is if those were her hands, she is going to be one strong baby!
Here is my 20 week belly shot:
And for reference's sake, I dug up pictures of my pregnancies with the other kids at 20 weeks or so.
Right here should be a picture of me pregnant with Ava, but there's not because I'm too lazy to scan it into the computer. Imagine one here.
Here I am at 20 weeks with Jace. You can see I am rocking the baby bangs look, not so much by choice. You know all that hair you lose after you have a baby? Mine was finally growing back after Ava's birth and resulted in that very fancy look you see there. I'm reasonably sure that immediately after I saw this picture I went straight to the hairdresser to get bangs cut to hide the evidence.
This is me at 19 weeks with Eli. John and I went on a cruise without kids (we both almost jumped off the ship as it left the harbor). It was so much fun, we ate an insane amount of food, and I learned just how much cheaper cruises are when you're pregnant, since you're not paying for alcohol (read: a lot cheaper, especially compared to the cruise I went on with my best girlfriends the year before). This is also the last week before everything got crazy with cervical issues and bedrest and fun things like that.
Right here there should be a picture of 20 weeks with Seth, but truthfully, one just doesn't seem to exist. There are not many belly pictures of Seth until I am roughly the size of a planet. Kind of unfair. I was going to throw in a random picture of me around about that time, but I am actually too lazy to do that, either.
And again, 2o weeks with this baby! We're getting there.
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I just wanted to thank any of you who headed on over to my friend Mandy's brave new venture Survival Mode Parent yesterday. The site had well over a thousand hits yesterday and more than 60 volunteers signed up! I want to know who signed up in the Tampa area. Let's hook up.
If you haven't had a chance to check it out, please do. Survival Mode Parent is a ministry designed to link up parents of NICU or PICU babies or children with people in their area who want to help them out with simple every day tasks. A few errands run, a load of laundry, or a meal can do wonders to lift the spirits of someone dealing with the stress of a baby or child in the hospital.
Mandy has set up a really cool little area with people's stories about their children's hospital stays. If you have a story to share, please let one of us know. These stories are so powerful...and I know some of you have them. I want to hear them, and I know Mandy does too.
