Dear Baby Pacheco,

I think at this point I can’t really say anymore that I don’t “feel pregnant.” You are 19 weeks along (the size of a MANGO– wow!), and although I don’t feel nausea or things like that anymore the changes to my shape are taking their toll:

Hopefully at this point when people see me they realize I’m pregnant, haha. Exercise is getting harder because I don’t have the freedom of movement I used to & tire more easily, but I still try to shoot for 30 minutes of some sort of activity every day. The real struggle for me, however, has been sleep. I’ve never been the sort of person that sleeps soundly throughout the night anyway, but this not being allowed to sleep on my back stuff has been killing me! This week I finally broke down and invested in one of those “pregnancy pillows” that sort of forces you to sleep on your side. It’s called the Snoogle:

It definitely helps keep me on my side and is pretty cozy, but of course it takes some getting used to. Poor Dad doesn’t get as much room on his side of the bed anymore, but he’s been very sweet about giving me all the space I need. This is probably TMI (especially to read about your parents so my apologies in advance), but one pitfall with the Snoogle is that it really inhibits cuddling & such with the person in bed next to you. Again, poor Dad! :-X LOL.

I also feel what I’m much more confident is you moving around in there on a regular basis. Some movements are more obvious than others (i.e. clear “pokes”), but most of the time it feels like a soft fluttering in my lower abdomen. It comes & goes every few hours, I’d say I feel it at least 3 times a day & sometimes in the middle of the night. Dad keeps putting his hand on my belly in the hopes that he’ll feel something… I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finally does! 🙂 My guess is it won’t happen for another few weeks or so.

So this week we ended up with a 3-day holiday weekend & nothing to do, so on a whim we decided to go to one of those 3D ultrasound places and get a little peek at how you’re doing & what you look like these days. Not only had we not seen you in 7 weeks, but the 3D images let us see so much more detail! We even got to take home over 50 images and a DVD of the whole session. This was my favorite 3D image:

You have such a sweet, adorable little face! One of the BEST things (and the reason I’m not sharing more of the pics/video) about the session was that we were able to find out your gender, clear as day! 😀 😀 We’re waiting until our anatomy scan with the OB-GYN to confirm before we post it online, but the technician was absolutely certain and after comparing our pictures with other examples online, there is not a doubt in my & Dad’s minds either. So exciting! That will be the biggest topic of next week’s post, I think.

And that’s a good place to leave off. They say when it comes to things like this, always leave them wanting more… I think I accomplished that this week! 😉 Until next time, little mango!

All my love,
Mom