The Story Continues...

I finally got to publish a pretty long post summarizing the highlights of my pregnancy but it got too long so I decided to split it into two posts.  You can check out the first part of this post here.

~Second Trimester~

I finally started feeling better around week 15 or 16.  Praise God!!!!

I fiiiiinally got around to taking a picture of my bump right at the beginning of my 18th week.

Eden wanted to show off her bump, too. 

I had another visit with the midwife at 18 weeks.  We found the heartbeat with the doppler again and it sounded strong and healthy (I can't remember what it was).

Just a couple days later, we had our anatomy ultrasound scan.  The baby looked completely healthy.  The ultrasound did confirm something that I suspected--I have an anterior placenta, explaining why I had not really felt much (or hardly any) fetal movement.  Thankfully, this shouldn't really have any other implications at all.

We did not find out the gender that evening but did have the ultrasound tech write it on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope.  The following day, I gave the envelope to my good friend who bought balloons based on the gender.  That evening, we gathered with our friends and family at a local restaurant and, together, found out that IT'S A GIRL!  I was genuinely shocked.  I have no valid reasons for thinking it was a boy but I was just convinced that it was.  But I was wrong (unless, of course, the ultrasound tech was wrong, but I highly doubt that)!  Here are a few pics from our fun party. We did a "Baseball Player or Ballerina" theme.  Guests were asked to dress up according to what gender they thought the baby was.  Since I thought it was a boy, I dressed up like a baseball player and since Jeff thought it was a girl, he dressed up like a ballerina (tutu made by yours truly).

Unfortunately, I can't get the video of the actual reveal to load correctly.  I'll try again later!

Most people's next question is:  "Have you picked out a name?"  The answer is, "Yes," but we're not telling anyone yet.  I am planning to announce it in a fun way in a couple of weeks.  Stay tuned, hopefully that will be my next blog post!

I am finally feeling the baby move a lot more.  Jeff even got to feel her last night!  Eden has said and done some of the cutest things as my belly has gotten noticeably bigger recently.  First, she keeps insisting that it's a boy, which is pretty hilarious.  My friend who watches Eden when I'm sleeping after working or while I'm at clinical, was trying to get Eden to tell her the baby's name and Eden kept saying, "It's a BOY!"  Another super cute story:  When Eden stole my grilled cheese the other day and wouldn't let me have another bite, I told her that her baby sister needed to eat and she proceeded to try to feed her the grilled cheese through my belly button.  LOL

I did get around to taking one more bump picture this week at 21 weeks.

Eden had to get in on the action again.  So cute!

Hopefully it's not another 5 months before my next blog post (can you believe the baby will be here by then?!?).