Halfway Point!

As of Sunday, I am officially at the halfway point of the pregnancy - 20 weeks! I had my regular doctor's appointment on Monday, and I've gained a total of 10 pounds. Dr. Passes did an ultrasound but of course even he admitted it does not do the photos we got last week justice at all. Everything looks good. He asked if I was feeling the baby at all and I said I thought so - occasional flutters and once in a while I can definitely say there is a movement. He said by the end of the week I will know for sure that it was the baby. I also asked him if there was anything I could use for the ITCHING on my belly. I read and was told that this would happen because your skin stretches, but the fact that I am already a very itchy person to begin with between allergies and sensitive skin - holy crap! I wake myself up in the middle of the night not to go to the bathroom, but itching like crazy! I get up to put on lotion, and then I go to the bathroom anyway though. Tails usually gets up and keeps me company - since he is usually sleeping on my legs or on the body pillow (he loves that thing too!), I end up disturbing him. Although last night for the first time, he did NOT get up and follow me into the bathroom. You see, he would always do that when I would wake up in the morning because he knew then i was heading down to the kitchen to get breakfast for Tux and himself. Our ritual is that he sits and waits in the bathroom, sometimes rubs against my leg, and when we're done, i pick him up and carry him down to the kitchen like a baby, purring like crazy. I think last night he finally realized that my middle of the night trips to the bathroom have never ended up with breakfast, so he's finally caught on that there is a difference.

On Sunday, John and I ventured out to JUST LOOK at Babies R Us. Holy moly! We had no clue what we were looking for, but at least we anticipated being overwhelmed. We just wanted to get some ideas on what we were looking at/for, and for fun we pushed around a few strollers but were not impressed with the selection. We will probably take a ride to look at Buy Buy Baby, which has 3 stores in northern NJ, but they are over an hour away at least. We did not buy anything for ourselves or the baby. I did buy some plain white onesies for our church, as they had a wishing basket on Sunday where you picked out a tag of a baby related item to buy and bring back this coming weekend that will be given at a special baby shower for poor families in the area who are expcting babies to receive gifts. The gift tag I picked out was for onesies b/c I at least know what the heck they are! John has also decided that in the next 3-4 years he is going to INVENT something baby-related. So hopefully in a few years we'll be millionaires as a result of having this baby!

I have not heard anything regarding the amnio results from the other doctor's office where we went for the level 2 scan and had the amnio done last Monday, but I am looking at that as no news is good news. Sometimes i guess they will call you with preliminary results if there were concerns prior to having the amnio to either reassure you or to have you get genetic counseling if necessary, but there were no concerns - we just decided to do the amnio since I'm 10 years past my 29th birthday, so I'm thinking they have nothing to tell us, and will call us next week when the final report is in after 2 weeks. The instructional paperwork they provided actually says they will call when the final report is in. We just ask that you continue to pray that all is fine for our little guy.

I think I have reviewed all 100,001 names in the baby name book and have to say, I am quite troubled by some of the names I came across. I won't mention them here for fear of putting my foot in my mouth (that would be good since I am starting to struggle to reach my toes to put nailpolish on them!) and someone reading this will know someone by that name. We have a few ideas, and have received 1-2 suggestions as well - one that is definitely under consideration in addition to one that each of us has come up with, but feel free to send your suggestions to us if you'd like. If you think i read the baby name book with a fine tooth comb you don't know that I read 9 books on a week's vacation last year...so yeah, I probably skimmed over some of them (did not even look at the X and Y names, I admit). Some guidelines - no crazy celebrity like names - they did have a section in the book of celebrity kids names - and nothing too trendy or different. Not sure that really helps...it isn't really helping us. We do plan on incorporating John probably as the middle name, so it would have to work with that.

It's dinner time and I need to go find something to munch on since John is not home with my quesadilla, salsa and guacamole yet... check that, he just pulled in the driveway! It's Cinco de Mayo, so hope you all had a happy one, and Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms, sisters, aunts, godmothers, grandmoms, etc. out there!