Sixteen weeks

How far along? 16w0d

Maternity clothes? Bella bands and loose tops still. I was refusing to buy any maternity pants because I like to do clothes shopping online and I hate buying pants online (or at all) and was not interested in trying to figure out how to pick out a $50 pair of pants (or two) that was only going to last me 5 months and would probably not fit right in the meantime. But then my work friends made a couple compelling arguments. C said "but they are SO comfortable. You will only want to buy maternity pants for the rest of your life." V (Ms. no filter) said "and, um, depending on how quickly you 'bounce back' ...it may be that you wear them for longer than 5 months." I was convinced, so I bought a pair of khaki's and a skirt from @nn t@lor l0ft. They haven't arrived and I'm doing just fine with my bella bands.

Stretch marks? No. I started applying Cur3l pregnancy lotion this week. Someday I plan to get some serious belly butter but I still don't feel like there's much stretching going on.

Sleep? Ugh, I'm getting remarkably a lot considering how uncomfortable I am at night. I'm still sleeping on a futon while the dogs go through their deworming. I can't believe they get our pillowtop matress while I'm on the futon. There's something wrong with that. I think they might get kicked out of the bed for the duration of the pregnancy - I LOVE my dogs but I need that space back and I don't need to get jumped on and woken up all night.

Best moment this week? My mom emailed me to say she got a birthday present from my aunt and that in the box there was a little present for my baby. I haven't gotten it yet and my mom didn't say what it was but just the thought made me cry, it was so sweet. Our baby's first gift.

Movement? I definitely am on the lookout but still can't be sure that anything I'm feeling is actually the baby.

Food cravings? cupcakes. lattes. deli sandwiches. popcorn. The weird one is egg salad. Until this week the thought of eggs has made me nauseous, but suddenly I just want a hearty egg salad sandwich on honey wheat.

Gender? No idea. All the old wives tales say it's a girl. I can't believe we find out this month! Well....hopefully. I know babies don't always cooperate during that scan.

What I miss? Deep breaths. My newest symptom is not one that I expected so soon. I am struggling to take deep breaths. I have to try to yawn or sigh every five minutes or so and sometimes I can't even get that accomplished. It's particularly hard when I'm "active" and by "active" these days I mean like walking around. The yawning and sighing is not a good look for work, btw.

Weekly Wisdom: I'm not going to make up symptoms just to get my obg to listen to me, I am going to be straight w/ her, come what may. I'll have an update on that appointment on Wednesday probably. Also, I've stopped googling obsessively about things that might conceivably pose some kind of grave problem if I do enough research. E.g. the rat issue at my parents' house that I blogged about in my last post. Instead of looking up all the possible airborne diseases one could get from this situation and their effect on pregnancy, I'm just going to go, make sure the vents are closed and the heat doesn't get turned on. And as long as I don't smell anything funny, I'm not going to worry about it.

Milestones: Purchasing maternity pants.

Emotions: I worry a lot. All my regular readers know this. It's not that I sit here with an elevated heart rate and a feeling of panic, I just worry about a lot and these thoughts are always in the back of my mind. This week is no exception and the effect might be heightened since I'm stepping into the IC window even though I know I have no more reason to worry about IC than the next person. At this point I'm thankful that I can't think of anything super specific to obsessively worry about after IC (there are plenty of general ones like PTL, but none that I can do much about) so hopefully once I'm past this month's scan I'll be able to relax a little. That's what I'm counting on anyway. Hopefully now that I am in the window, each day will feel like a little accomplishment and my fear will diminish as I gain confidence. Hopefully.

Please just let this month to go quickly.