Dear Baby Pacheco,

You are over 18 weeks along now, and about the size of a sweet potato. 🙂 Time is flying by! Over the weekend I tripped on a street curb while Dad & I were out walking Cody… luckily I just landed on my hands & knees, but of course any sort of fall is scary when you are pregnant. Between that & still not really being able to feel you moving around much yet, I’d psyched myself out enough to move my next check-up appointment to this morning (it was supposed to be Friday so just a few days earlier). Dad actually got to come with me since he’d strained his shoulder over the weekend & was taking the day off of work to rest it. Now that I think about it, I guess it was a weekend full of injuries! :-\

The appointment went really well. I weighed in & found that I’ve gained 2 lbs. since my last monthly appointment (3 lbs. overall since the start of my pregnancy), which the doctor said was right on track. The results of of my gestational diabetes test were perfect, and they told me that I will test for that again around 28 weeks. They did the usual urine sample & also a blood test to check for spinal bifida (? not sure if I’m spelling that right). Then Dad & I both got to hear your heartbeat for a few minutes. 🙂 It was nice & healthy at about 160 beats per minute! We could also hear you moving around a bit too. So overall everything looks great, which is quite a relief after being worried this weekend.

While we were there we also scheduled the anatomy scan, where we find out if you’re a boy or girl, for September 10th– exactly TWO WEEKS from today! We can’t wait! I wanted to schedule it earlier but the doctor won’t let anyone do it sooner than the 20 week point. Hopefully these next couple of weeks go by fast. When we got home we took my weekly belly picture:

Not really noticing much of a difference from last week, but I guess a sweet potato isn’t really that much bigger than an onion. Everything else feels about the same as well as far as symptoms go, or for me it’s really a lack thereof since I feel like my normal self most of the time… Just a bit tired by the end of the day. If only my office allowed mid-afternoon siestas! 😉

After taking a couple months’ mental break from educational pregnancy stuff to enjoy some fiction books, I recently started delving into the world of birthing, breastfeeding, & infant care literature. It’s led me to thinking a lot about what the birth experience is going to be like, or at least what I hope it will be like. This may be a lofty goal but I’m hoping that your birth will occur as naturally as possible, with as little medical “assistance” (epidural, etc.) as possible. Luckily the hospital I plan to give birth at is very supportive of this, and Dad is too. Hopefully with their help things will go smoothly when the time comes. I suppose I have plenty of time to think about this, but I am just too much of a planner not to think about it & prepare myself as much as possible. Not sure if you’ve picked up on this yet Baby Pacheco, but your mother is quite the worry wart! Hahaha

That’s pretty much it for now. Until next time, little sweet potato!

All my love,
Mom