16 Weeks

Today I'm 16 weeks pregnant!  I've been feeling good other than my near daily headaches and some round ligament pain.  I had a routine OB appointment this week and the nurse practitioner said that I'm already doing pretty much everything I can for my headaches: Tylenol, caffeine, and hot or cold compresses.  The good news is that I can take my Zyrtec again, so maybe once my allergies are under control the headaches won't be as frequent!  The nurse who checked baby's heartbeat with the Doppler had a very hard time finding it!  Baby likes to sit in one particular spot, just under my belly button and to the left.  The nurse started with the Doppler on the right, so I knew she wouldn't find it there.  As she moved all over my belly I definitely started to panic a bit!  Dave didn't come to the appointment with me, so I didn't have anyone's hand to hold for reassurance.  Finally, after pushing very hard and looking for about five minutes, the heartbeat came through clear as day!  Talk about a relief!  Baby's heart rate was 144 beats per minute, so it's slowed down quite a bit from my 12 week check up.  Other than that, the appointment went great and my blood pressure was the lowest it's ever been for me, 118/72, yay!  Our next OB appointment is in three weeks for our detailed anatomy scan.  Tomorrow, however, we are having an elective gender ultrasound!!  I am absolutely dying to know if this baby is a boy or a girl, so I really, really hope that s/he cooperates and shows us the goods.  I really just can't wait to see our little bean again too!  The last ultrasound we had the baby still looked more like a gummy bear than an actual human being.

I'll take my 16 week picture and post it tomorrow, because I am a hot mess right now after baking all afternoon and not at all decent enough for a cute picture! :-)

Baby is now the size of an avocado:

We have a few at home, so I help one up to my stomach to give Dave an idea of the actual size of the baby. It seems pretty large to me compared with just a few weeks ago!  What's crazy is that in the next few weeks the baby will double in weight and add inches to its length!  I guess that I should get ready for my bump to have a growth spurt of its own.  

I'll post my 16 week picture tomorrow morning and then we've got stuff going on all day, so I won't be able to post about the gender scan until Sunday.  I'm counting down the hours!!