My growing bump

I haven't really gained that much (I'm still at a -5 lbs from what I lost in the beginning) but I feel HUGE! My mom says it's because Penelope did the hard work of stretching my tummy last time that this time it's a piece of cake (cake sounds good right about now...). Anyways, I knew I should take another bump photo because most of my family is far away and they don't get a chance to see me. So here it goes:

So, from the front view, it's not so bad. You can't tell too much unless you're standing right in front of me in person. But take a look at that side view.... Makes me feel SO BIG. To give you a sense of how big I am, I will tell you of my shopping experience with my sister as part of our girls day out. I just bought this shirt and top in the last few days (this past Friday in fact). The sales woman at the store said she didn't realize I was pregnant until I said something (which made me a little sad that she thought I was this big normally). Anywho, I am usually a large or extra large in shirts depending on the brand and cut. Well, this shirt isn't maternity so I was expecting to go to the extra large.... not so. I had to get an XXL for the shirt. This made me a little nervous when I was looking at their skirts that I would feel poorly about them as well. This skirt is a large... and it's WAY loose. It has an elastic-y waist so I can wear it during and after I have the baby. So there you have it: an XXL on top and a L on bottom. Talk about feeling huge. To try to make me feel better, my sister told me that the shirts run a little small because she usually wears a small and she had to get a medium so it wasn't sticking to her. So maybe it's the cut of the shirt, who knows.

Well, it's off to have some lunch for me. Enjoy these pictures.

Baby Names

I know we still have plenty of time to veto names on our list and to come up with new ones. Here are our top 6 names that have been through our vetoes (in no particular order): Matthew, William, Patrick, Nicholas, Benjamin, and Declan. Even though William is on both sides of our family, I may end up vetoing it because it's number 3 on the top 100 names for the last few years (and I personally feel like everyone is naming their baby boy "William"). Only time will tell. In Chris' family, there's a tradition of the first born to take the first name of the father as their middle name but because we had Penelope first we don't have to use his name as the middle name. We'll see if we do or not. I feel like we have a good list of names and no pressure to look at more or think about it further until the baby is about to come.

Surprisingly, there are only 2 names that were vetoed by Chris. The names we're not going to use are Timothy (because of Tim Cook) and Robert (I guess Chris new a Robert...).

The baby has been moving around a lot these last few days. Today, he was moving in ways that you could see on my belly instead of me just feeling the movement inside. I guess he's just excited that we're at the halfway point today. Plus, I was talking about cheesecake and mini eclairs to Chris and he just moved all around fast and hard. This kid must have a sweet tooth or something. I crave beef a lot more this time around (constantly wanting hamburgers or meatball subs) but I make sure to get some good stuff in too (chicken and turkey).

My OBGYN says we can finally classify my pregnancy as "normal". For those who don't know, I didn't have a "normal" pregnancy with Penny. I was a high risk for most of it. I was really quite sick the first trimester and was eventually hospitalized by week 12 with hyperemesis (I lost a total of 40lbs in a matter of 6 weeks). Thankfully, I have the same doctor this time around and we were able to get things stabilized with this pregnancy. She's thrilled that I'm starting to pick up some weight (although I'm still at a -7lbs from when I started this pregnancy) and is convinced everything is going to work out wonderfully.

Well, my meatball sub is calling my name!