Double Digits

Do you see what this ticker is telling us? We are officially in the double digits! Not only did this past weekend mark the start of the last week in the second trimester, but also put the number of days to go to less than 100. I'm not quite ready to give up the second trimester since it has treated me well for the most part, but every passing day does make us another day closer to meeting Tickey and we are definitely excited about that. Confirmation that we are definitely getting closer also came in other, less wonderful ways, this weekend. 

For starters, I discovered my first stretch mark. I thought I saw something developing late last week and despite the fact that I've read a thousand times that lotions won't help, I rubbed myself silly with the stretch mark cream my mom got me for Christmas. Obviously it didn't help because Sunday morning I was pointing to the mark, screeching at Kris "Do you see this?!", followed by a mix of screaming, hyperventilating, and eventually, laughing. Yes, I know, they are something to be proud of - battlemarks of my pregnancy, blah, blah, blah. I can only take refuge in the fact that they will one day fade (supposedly). 

My belly also seemed to grow overnight from Saturday to Sunday. I have been growing at a pretty steady pace, with a growth spurt right after Christmas that took me from "is she pregnant?" to "that woman is pregnant." For the month of January there wasn't much of a change in my belly size. That is until Saturday when Kris noted this, putting a curse on the steady growth because by Sunday morning there was a noticable difference. Unfortunately for those who are obsessed with pregnant bellies, I will not be posting monthly pictures of my growing belly. We'll take one set of maternity shots in a few weeks and I will post those, but that's about the extent. If you don't get to see me that often, you're just going to have to use your imagination. 

Also this weekend, Tickey became noticably stronger. The cute little kicks became forceful jabs that actually had be bending over in surprise and waking me up at night. I'm still loving feeling the baby, but am a bit worried that I am harbouring a baby of unusual strength!

Finally, Kris and I interviewed a doula this weekend and are pretty confident that we're going to hire her. We're supposed to interview a couple more this coming weekend, but hit it off well with Monique. Not only will having a doula take some pressure off Kris to be the all knowing birth partner by providing us with support during the labour, but she'll also help us prepare and provide some post partum care as well. After meeting with her we talked more about the possibility of having the birth at home, something we hadn't given much thought to before. We knew that we wanted to stay at home as long as possible before going to the hospital, and the doula will help us with that, but having the extra support has made us rethink going to the hospital at all.

My mother is going to have an absolute bird when I tell her this. She still asks me when I'm going to see a "real" doctor (as opposed to the midwife).

And to end this post, I offer you the cutest picture imaginable....
We've been trying to keep Munchie out of the baby's room for fear that he would make himself at home, but he snuck in there this weekend and did exactly that.