bambino three: 15 weeks

Well, its getting to be that time where people area starting to look at me like I've been eating too many holiday cookies. Third baby means muscle memory is working overtime to recall what it was like to carry a baby and apparently feels an advance need to make room, literally. At 13 weeks I was still wearing regular clothes, feeling a little snug and bloated, by 14 weeks things were getting sketchy, I couldn't exactly do up my dress pants any longer and tights were well, too tight.

15 weeks makes things more real though, we are nearly 4 months and that means the half way point is sneaking up on us. It also means we need to start getting our ducks in a row because in our family five months tends to disappear in the blink of an eye. Also, it also means I had to put on the maternity pants. Boo.

This time, since I have that whole advanced maternal age issue, we have access to a few more screenings than we have in the past. Specifically a blood panel called Progenity. Progenity tests for every issue you can think of that has a risk of 1 in 5 million, so it can be overwhelming. What if my baby has one of those things? There are so many things on that panel! But, the silver lining to all of the panel requirements is that they test for extra sex chromosomes, which would be not good news, there are serious disorders that occur when a third sex chromosome is present, but it also means you get to know the sex. XX or XY.

So, its true that we know what the sex is already. It was fairly amazing. When we had the screening ultrasound we got to see the little peanut dancing around in there. Our baby apparently thinks he/she is a ninja because the whole time it treated me as a punching bag with its fists out in front. I wondered if possibly I will have a thumb sucker for the first time among our kids.

Really though, even the notion of all the tests are scary and the possibility of potential disorders can be stressful, the chance to see the baby again was amazing. I'm always super amazed and how developed babies are this early and how much they can already do. We won't see baby Hollman again until new years eve when we do the anatomy scan, so this will have to tide us over for a bit over a month.

So what is it you ask? This time around we've been blessed with a baby girl. Our little prayers with answered, and Drew, probably sighed a huge sigh of relief that we won't have to have 5 kids (although, I still could be persuaded, I think :) We're excited for her arrival, working on figuring out the nursery, names and all the fun that comes with realizing a little girl is on the way. We were fortunate to learn from the screen that she is also not at risk for any serious disorders, which gives me peace of mind as a worrying momma.

The boys are pretty excited too and started announcing it to the world. Owen's teacher cornered me the other day and said, Owen's been telling some stories and we're wondering if they are tall tales or if they are true. Apparently he's been sharing with his preschool friends that he'll have a sister this coming summer.

Finally, the nasty nausea has faded (hooray), but I'm still fairly tired and just a few days after it left my friend heartburn raised its ugly friend and its friend leg cramps followed him in. Sigh. If its not one thing, its another!

So to close on the 15 week update, here's our first bump pick. Not exactly flattering, but showing off your gut isn't exactly supposed to be is it? In a strange turn of events you'll probably look at these photos and say "woah! She's definitely showing" which mostly translates to gaining weight, but amazingly I have actually lost weight. Apparently my body is super good at redistributing it though because my belly isn't exactly small! Since I was so sick the first trimester the midwife I see was not surprised when I got on the scale and she said, oh, you lost 6 pounds. 6 pounds! holy crap. Its not going to last though, I'm sure next time they'll say something like, "oh, you gained 10 pounds!" Just lovely.