Week 19

Your Baby:

• Is about 5 1/2 to six inches long and weighs around 7 ounces.
• Although your baby will weigh more than 15 times its current weight by the time it is born, the rapid-fire growth portion of pregnancy is over. Thus, I have nothing else interesting to say up here. Baby is fully assembled; just needs some fattening up and lengthening out.

You:

• May be able to feel your baby’s kicks from the outside of your belly, if you’re lucky. My husband, Jason, felt his first kick last night, and it was pretty cool and rocking and all that. He only remembered the later, third-trimester wallops from last time — this was the first time we were able to catch one of the gentle, early kicks.
• How are your moods doing? I’m not about to tell anyone what’s “normal” at this point, except to say that whatever you’re feeling? Whether it be fear or worry or impatience or rage or weepiness or ecstatic joy or maybe a combination of all of the above in the span of 10 minutes? Yep. It’s probably normal.
• The moods are normal because things are probably becoming a whole lot more “real” right about now. The belly is undeniable, the movements are steady, perhaps you know whether it’s a boy or a girl and are deciding on names and picking out room decor. So maybe you ran out of the room crying during a movie where something bad happened to a small child. Or to an adult! Because THEY WERE SOMEONE’S BABY ONCE TOO! Congratulations! You’re officially bonding.

A couple weeks ago I was casually reminded by the powers that be over here that I have yet to utter a single word about pregnancy fitness.

Um. Yeah. I promised to get right up on that, just as soon as I did anything remotely fitness-related.

Um. Yeah.

So I…took a really long walk around Target the other day? I cleaned the house real good and made several consecutive trips up the stairs? We took the firstborn to a neighborhood festival and I’m sure I did some walking in between all the sitting on all the various benches?

I’m not very good at the pregnancy fitness thing, to be perfectly honest. Both times I have celebrated my positive pee stick with the purchase of a single prenatal fitness DVD, and neither of these DVDs have ever actually been used. In fact, I don’t even know where they are. One was yoga and the other was just a general fitness/cardio/workout thing. Jason keeps telling me that if I got more exercise I wouldn’t be so tired all the time. I think he is probably right, but also that he needs to shut the hell up and bring me some pie.

I am not proud of this, by any means. Staying fit and active during pregnancy is a GOOD THING, do not let my sarcasm make you think I am saying otherwise, and has a buttload of benefits. Delivery is tough and taxing, and women in better physical shape quite often have an easier time. Hell, PREGNANCY is tough and taxing, and the stronger your legs and abs and back muscles are, the better you’ll feel.

Obviously, you want to stay away from anything that could be dangerous — any sport that has a high risk of falls or collisions should be avoided, but stuff like walking, swimming and even running are great ways to stay in shape during pregnancy. Provided, of course, that you know your limits and stay aware of your changing shape and balance and energy levels.

(I am highly amused by the number of pregnancy books that specifically mention BOWLING, as in, yes, bowling is okay but you need to be careful in later pregnancy because of your balance and the strain on your back. I don’t know why this amuses me, except for the visual I get of me, with my giant beach-ball belly, hurling a bowling ball down a lane and launching into an epithet-laced tirade when I get yet another gutterball.)

(Nobody ever wants to go bowling with me anymore. I really don’t know why. It’s not like when I was losing at Clue and threw the board on the floor or anything.)

I try to walk regularly, though, and I am serious about all the stair climbing. We lived on the top floor of a walk-up condo building last time so I got LOADS of exercise that way, and now that pregnancy brain has fully kicked in I feel like I am constantly climbing stairs at my house only to forgot why I went up them in the first place, only to walk down and then remember. I do squats and leg lifts while I brush my teeth or before I get into bed — the extra weight around my middle actually seems to make squats even MORE effective in toning the problem upper-thigh area, and of course I do my Kegels. Which, while not “pregnancy fitness” exactly, are essential nonetheless now that I live in fear of every cough and sneeze and what they do to my bladder.

Oh Yeah, THIS: Nesting! Already. God. I am filled with a myriad of overwhelming compulsive tics to rearrange furniture and finally frame those photos and I reorganized the DVDs and the silverware drawer and the other day I leafed through an Elfa catalog and nearly passed out from all the delicious, heavenly organization.

New This Time Around: I’m at just under the halfway point and I think I already have names picked out, both for a boy and a girl. Jason won’t fully commit to either but we’re in pretty good agreement about both. This is…not right. This is…too easy. This is…a sign that at next Wednesday’s ultrasound we will get the news that we are not having a boy OR a girl but some other previously unconsidered third option that will somehow send us back to the names drawing board altogether.

Related post: Pregnancy and COVID-19: What We Know (& a Few Things We Don’t)

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