18 Weeks

At 18 weeks, our baby has reached the length of a bell pepper - about 5.5 inches long and weighing about 7oz (almost half a pound!). At this stage in the pregnancy, our baby's senses are starting to mature - the eyes and ears are in their final positions, and although Baby may or may not be able to differentiate between sounds, he/she can definitely hear sounds around them (such as my heartbeat, my stomach growling, mine and Tyler's voices (!!), and external sounds. One website even said that Baby may start moving and responding differently in reaction to certain sounds - let's hope that means Baby will move more when it hears our voices :) Speaking of movement, Baby is working on the moving skills this week too! Baby's flexing his/her arms and legs more frequently now, and as he/she continues to grow, I should definitely be able to feel Baby more this week! I've felt Baby 2 times now, which doesn't feel like enough to me :) Bring on those jabs, Baby!! Our ultrasound is in 2weeks, and although we don't want to know the gender of our baby, the gender is apparent and able to be seen externally now (I hope our child isn't an exhibitionist....) :)

Not super "cutesy" but it's sucking it's thumb!! So precious :)

Thought this one was pretty cool - it looks so much like a living, breathing baby already!!

As for me, my body is showing more subtle signs that our baby is growing - increased appetite and itchy skin on my belly. The itchy skin is actually really annoying, but at least now I know why my stomach has been so itchy lately! Also, because the baby is growing, my cardiovascular system is continuously going through pretty dramatic changes. This trimester especially, because there's so much growth, my blood pressure is expected to be lower than normal which means I may feel dizzy a little more frequently - guess I need to keep drinking that water to keep my blood volume (and balance!) on track :) Due to the increasing size of my uterus, it is now recommended that I lay on my side (particularly left side) whenever I lay down - who would have thought it was a good thing that I've learned to sleep on my side all of these years?! This is to keep the pressure off of my inferior vena cava (main vein that returns blood to the heart); increased pressure from the growing baby, along with laying on my back can compress this vein and decrease the blood return to my heart, which would definitely cause some problems. So glad I already like laying on my side!!

Tyler's been talking to Baby a little more - I'll have to encourage him to keep doing so, especially now that I know Baby can definitely hear us! He and one of our friends here, Stephen, installed a new patio door in our condo - now we have a large window where we had a solid door before! Thankfully the installation went well (even though I was CONVINCED the new door was way too big - I was wrong!) and it looks great! Tyler also changed our thermostat to a programmable thermostat this past weekend; had a few glitches along the way (like mixing up the wires which led to no A/C for a night - good thing God gave us cool weather for that night!) but Tyler was able to figure out the problem, solve it, and successfully install a new thermostat - way to go, babe!

Although the weather has been cooler here this summer (you Hoosiers have been having warmer weather than us lately!), it's been very pleasant! We're hoping to hit the beach on Friday after Tyler gets off work - yep, you can be jealous if you want ;) This Thursday wraps up our Bible study that we started last fall, so we're having an extended time with the Lord on Saturday and then having a celebratory lunch out at a yummy restaurant in Virginia Beach - looks like it's going to be a great weekend!!

Thanks for all of your love and support, we're almost halfway there!! Nothing super specific to pray for this week (other than increased baby movement, more for my encouragement that everything is still going well in there!), so just that Baby is growing healthy and strong, and that our ultrasound on June 22nd will look good! Keep the prayers coming - we really appreciate them!