Paint The Barn Red: weekly baby bumpdate / 25 weeks

"Way to plant, Ann."

25 WEEK INTERVIEW

How far along?

25 weeks and 5 days!

Baby's size?

Baby is about 13 1/2 inches long and weighs about 1 and a half pounds! Roughly the size of an eggplant!

"Eggplant" made me realize that "Way to plant, Ann" would be a very necessary piece of this blog post.

Because Egg. Plant.

It's as Ann as the nose on Plain's face!

Days until next doc appointment?

13 days!

Total weight gain?

14.4 pounds

Maternity clothes?

If there's one thing you do in pregnancy, it's that you buy bigger underwear. Like two sizes too big underwear. I waited far too long to do this, probably due to being in denial that the size small I usually don no longer fit me the way God intended them to. When my sparkling new undies arrived, I held up for the first time in my life a pair of Victoria's Secret size Large underwear. I think my brain had to do everything in its power to keep my eyes from bulging out of my skull. I mean these things are competing with Jason's for size, people. They. Are. Huge. But so, SO comfortable because they actually fit. I could hug them. All day. They are my best friends.

Is that weird?

You're looking at me like that's weird.

Stretch marks?

Still none! I do my best to cover myself almost head to toe in lotion every day. Drinking plenty of water helps too!

Sleep:

Sometimes I wake up with hip pain from sleeping for too long on one side or if my propped up leg came off of one of my fifty pillows, but generally speaking I'm sleeping well!

Best moment this week:

I think the baby can hear me! I mean I guess technically at this stage the baby is supposed to be able to hear and all, but this was the first time I can say I think the baby was reacting to my voice (: I had been sitting in our home office when I started feeling the baby move. Soon after that, I just happened to call one of our cats over to me. Then the baby moved. Out of curiosity, I wondered if the baby had reacted to my voice, so I waited for the baby to be completely still and called the cat again. The baby moved again. I did this a few more times and almost every time I called the cat, the baby moved quite a bit! I thought that was kind of awesome (: Now we just have to hope the baby won't start thinking their name is the same as the cat's name haha

Movement:

So much movement! Sometimes it feels like the baby is doing flips! One time this week, I'm pretty sure there was an arm or a leg stuffed up in my ribcage somehow haha. Last night while sitting in bed, on the left side of the front of my belly a bulge about the size of a softball emerged about half a dozen different times. At the same time that the bulge would appear, it felt like my organs behind the baby (toward my back) were getting smushed. I think what I was seeing/feeling was the baby's back/bum and the baby was "pushing off" the back wall of my uterus with their feet which is why it felt like some of my vital organs were being poked and prodded. Because you know, having your organs poked around on from the inside of your own body is just another day in the life haha

Food cravings:

I still wouldn't say I've had too many strong cravings lately. Not more than a non-pregnant person would anyway!

Anything make you queasy or sick?

I still really don't like meat except for black forest ham and bacon on occasion.

Have you started to show yet?

Yes! Maybe!? I was told at church this week that I'm finally starting to show! It's been much warmer here this past week so I didn't have all my thick Winter layers on. I think that helped make the bump more visible. (: Otherwise it's so easy to hide my belly behind a poofy Winter jacket haha

Missing anything?

Cake mix! I could just cry about it. And yes I'm one of those people that would rather eat unbaked sweets than baked ones.

You bake them and you take a little more than all of the fun away.

Gender:

Baby is going to be a surprise. (:

Labor signs?

No sir!

Belly button:

Ok, it is definitely getting shallower. We might need to take a rain check on it being "several weeks" before it pops out like I had said in last week's bumpdate. It's less than a half-inch deep these days. But it's still an innie!

Wedding rings on or off?

Still on! I'm hoping I can wear them through the end of my pregnancy. Most of the time they aren't tight at all, yet they've changed the shape of my finger. There's a very visible dent where my rings are haha

Happy or moody most of the time?

Happy when I'm with Jason! Haha

When I'm not, I think I would say I'm descending into that stereotypical emotional mess that pregnant women are often described as. The other day I flat out sobbed over a video where an abandoned, injured pup was being rescued and cared for by some good loving people. Sobbed.

Weekly symptoms:

Very itchy bumps on my legs, can't really bend over to pick things up (squats all day), lots of pee trips, acid reflux, rhinitis of pregnancy (nosebleeds), fatigue from standing/doing too much in one stretch, general fatigue. I've gotten to the point where I really should be taking naps almost daily with how exhausted I've been, but I've only been able to squeeze in one short nap over the weekend so far. Since I haven't dealt with fatigue that was this bad since the first trimester, I thought I was in the clear and that I wouldn't be dealing with it anymore. So it's been hard to make myself slow down lately and get extra rest when I need it, especially now that I've gotten used to having more energy over the past few months.

Update from last week: the miniature varicose vein on the ball of my ankle has disappeared. Yay!

Looking forward to:

Have I mentioned I'm really looking forward to time off with Jason over Christmas and New Years? (: Only a week left until his time off begins! Yay! Then adventures abound (:
Also, I'm excited to share a blog post of one of our recently completed furniture projects! Stay tuned for that later this week!

Would you like to see more?
Check out my other "bumpdates" below!