21 weeks - A Boy! Whew!

New pictures in the belly gallery. And I'm hoping to scan the pictures from the ultrasound and get those posted over the weekend.

This week was all about processing and growing accustomed to the fact that Peanut is a BOY! So many friends have sworn from day one that he WAS a boy, I don't know why it came as such a huge shock, but it did. I think I'm still really in the throes of learning to think of myself as a mother of TWO kids, and now I'm adding being the mother of a boy to that adjustment. I don't know why this adjustment is so much tougher for me than adjusting to being a mother at all, but it is. I do think when Peanut is born I'll have LESS shock and adjustment to his arrival, simply BECAUSE I have already gotten used to seeing myself as and being a mother, period.

It dawned on me Thursday that the rapid motion of a boy might even be refreshing to me, as Bean and Al are both rather pokey by nature (which Al has admitted to himself, so I'm not tattling or anything). It'd be nice to have a little person who enjoys doing some things lickety split.

In retrospect I should have known Peanut was his Daddy's little boy in the days before the nausea started and those after it has ended, as my cravings when un-nauseous have run the Al-approved gamut of cheeseburgers, cheese, nuts, potroast and anything really, really hot and spicy. (Not that that's what Al eats, exclusively, just that those are some of his favorite things.) I've put Tabasco on everything from omelettes to peas and rice to beef stew, and my tastebuds ADORE the heat and the peppery flavor. Only trouble is that's not the right diet for a Mama who wears heartburn around like a tight, itchy wool scarf at all times. We make compromises, though, the Peanut and I. Yesterday I gave him his buffalo chicken tenders for lunch, and he gave me my dinner of Just Some Fruit. And we were both satisfied, in the end, although the heartburn nearly did me in in the afternoon yesterday. He will not be getting his buffalo chicken tenders again for awhile. You hear that, little boy? Mama needs to be able to breathe.

This morning at about 3:00 AM I noticed he had hiccups. Or at least I think he had hiccups. With Bean it was always easy to tell because she was so still and I'd feel a little rythmic pattern of poppy bumps in the same place for awhile. With Peanut, he is always moving around, so the bumples were in the right pattern but they were pretty much all over my belly. Also I felt him stretch and push his feet (I assume) WAAAAAAAY out against my right side today, which was a first. Bean did this constantly in the last trimester. She just rode around in there with her feet propped up on my lowest right rib, like the princess that she is.

I've noticed that on occasion Peanut does something in there that feels like it's cutting off the circulation to and from my head. Seriously! He'll move and then all of a sudden my head feels like I've been turned upside down. Very strange. It passes quickly, usually, but yesterday during the worst part of the heartburn, he stayed on whatever it was forEVER and I was literally coughing and gasping for breath and feeling like all the blood had rushed to my head for a couple of hours. I assume he'd just gotten in whatever position does that to me and then fallen asleep. It was scary and weird and I'm definitely going to ask Dr. Howey about it. Would his doing something with the umbilical cord cause that? It doesn't seem like it would, but I'm wondering.

Bean and I went shopping yesterday and bought Peanut some little newborn and 0-3 month things. The fall/winter clothes were on MAJOR sale at Sears and we found some cute stuff - some soft and pastel and sweet for Mama and some more true little boy-looking things for Peanut's rough-and-tumble side. A good mix, and at ridiculous prices. We got a pair of little blue pants and two tops in newborn size, a warm, fuzzy blue snowsuit/car sacque in 0-6 months size, and four shirts in 0-3 mos (some with little wintery, snowy motifs that are SO CUTE). And Bean got a cute spring dress for half price, too. She has it on this morning, hee hee!

Al finally felt Peanut move from the outside (obviously) on Thursday night. The baby was squirming around wildly and kicking up a storm for about an hour, and Al was able to make out just two or three really big movements. We found out why this is, too, which is what I've suspected all along. The sonogram showed that the placenta is anterior and to the left, right over where Peanut usually stays himself. So the placenta is muffling his movements quite a bit. It also explains why I don't ever see him poking anything out against my belly like some mothers do. I didn't with Bean, either, and I'm assuming (I never asked while I was pregnant with her) that the placenta must have been in the same or a similar position then, too.

I don't seem to have gained any weight this week. It's amazing to me how I can go weeks without gaining anything and then all of a sudden in a day or two I gain two or three lbs. at a time. But I do remember it was that way with Bean, too.

I'm trying to wean myself off the Unisom I'd been taking for nausea, as I don't have much nausea anymore (when I do, I can usually point to something I've eaten as the culprit, like non-healthy, greasy foods, and too much of them in one sitting!). That is not going too well at the moment, as now I'm waking up around 2 am and not getting back to sleep until 4-ish. But I think that will wear off over time. I just don't think I should be taking Unisom anymore since I don't need it for nausea. I never loved taking it at all, but I did it so I could get through the days. And it WAS nice to sleep those long, solid 8 hour nights - I can't imagine dealing with that nausea when I was also not sleeping well.

We have two or three full boy names on our short list now. I am sad to have to give up my favorite girl names for good, sigh, but the boy names are nice, as well, just more simple and straightforward, except one of them, which Al probably won't go for anyway. In fact, he doesn't even know it's still on MY list, because it was never a serious consideration for him.

It is time to start thinking about Peanut's room, as well. I did some preliminary shopping on-line for bedding this week but didn't settle on anything. I know it'll all come together in my head before too long, I just have to wait it out. I have the hardest time making decisions when I'm pregnant. Why IS that?