Dear Alex,

This week (26 weeks) you are the size of a head of lettuce… a far cry from the poppyseed you once were! Actually I think this past week you were going through a bit of a growth spurt. I’ve read that is common around this time, and I noticed several of the tell-tale signs: decreased movement (growing is hard work, so you had to rest), more round ligament pains (ouch!), feeling hungry all the time (nom nom nom) and increased fatigue (zzzz….). I don’t know how much bigger I look, but the belly is feeling much tighter & fuller lately:

Also, some of the furrier members of our family have taken more notice of you/belly over the last couple of weeks:

This is Cody, our 2 year-old Corgi… he is by far one of the most intelligent dogs I’ve ever had, and he picked up on your presence rather quickly. He stopped jumping on my stomach within the first month or so of the pregnancy, and recently his new favorite pastime has been snuggling up to me & putting his head on my belly (as seen here!). Pretty neat how animals can sense things like that. Anyway, I have a feeling you & Cody will become fast friends once you make your grand arrival. 🙂 Our other dog, Annie, is much older (8 years) and probably won’t have the patience for little boys! Haha

Not much else is going on around here lately…. other than what I described above I’m feeling pretty much the same. I did have to officially step down my fitness routine a little bit, since I’m getting too big to do my usual fitness classes normally. Instead I’ve been doing a lot of treadmill walking and light weight lifting on my own. Sadly just walking on the treadmill   (I go on a steep incline at “power walk” pace) is a major workout for me these days!

I was trying to think of what else to write about, & Dad just reminded me that I had a “stretch mark scare” this week too. LOL. When I got out of the shower a few days ago I saw what I thought was a stretch mark on my belly… I went  running over to Dad freaking out about it & asking him if he thought it was a stretch mark. When he said he thought it was, I got so upset! Thankfully the mark seemed to be gone when I went to bed that night, so who knows what it actually was. I know stretch marks are likely inevitable, but after seeing some “horror story” pictures online I am really not looking forward to it & hope whatever I end up with isn’t too bad! Needless to say, I’ve been slathering on the cocoa butter ever since. Actually Dad has, it’s become our nightly ritual for him to rub cocoa butter on me before we go to bed. He gets to rub the belly & feel you kick, I get a little massage… it’s a win-win. 😉

And with that I’ll wrap things up for this week. Keep growing little man– we love you so much!

All my love,
Mom