Gone Fishin' at 24 weeks

So here it is... The protruding pregnancy belly has officially arrived.  In fact, it arrived about two weeks ago.  I looked in the mirror on Sunday, October 6th at 23 weeks 4 days and saw a pregnant lady.  My first reaction was honestly "Holy sh*t, girl, you ARE pregnant!"

I'm currently 26 weeks pregnant, but the post was written two weeks ago and I was just waiting to take a bump photo.  Well, it hasn't happened yet -- life gets in the way of a good selfie sometimes.  I took my first bump-date photo with Finn at 24 weeks and really wanted to do a side-by-side.  Time slipped away from me and my belly got bigger and bigger.  If I were to make a comparison of today with 24 weeks from my first pregnancy, I would feel like a fat whale.  Then I realized that I had taken the "belt" photo while I was 24 weeks.  So I just edited the photo to look of a similar style to my six month photos with Finn.  So without further ado...  Then and now...

 Six months with Finn

Six months pregnant with Fish

A freaky-deaky photo of the two pregnancies combined.

And although the photos aren't exactly the same, you can see how much bigger my belly is this time around pretty prominently.

The last two months have flown by and I forgot that I was pregnant most of the time.  With the broken foot, I just felt fat and uncoordinated.  I have also officially reached the zone where I can't sit down and tie my shoes without my belly getting in the way.  And I still have FOUR months left!  In comparing the photos from Finn and Fish, I feel like I look a lot larger already, but in comparing the weight gain, I've only gained a single pound more this pregnancy.

We had our anatomy scan done the day after I broke my foot (September 9th).  Everything looked great with absolutely no concerns, except "doing the googles" do terrible things to worry-warts. I found out that I have an anterior placenta, meaning that the placenta is on the front side of my uterus and not the back.  By most definitions, it is not a concern unless it is sitting low over the cervix, which would not allow for a natural birth.  Mine is not low -- but I started searching through the archives of google and found that anterior placentas lead to "sunnyside-up" babies (posterior babies that are essentially born backwards, facing the ceiling rather than the floor).  Posterior babies mean oodles of back labor, which it doesn't sound enjoyable to me...  Lady's birth was relatively fast and the seconds tend to be even faster (which is a good thing in my book) -- posterior babies are not born fast.  But when I spoke with my doctor, he did the academic thing and searched through published medical articles (and NOT google).  He concluded that the main source of information on posterior babies and anterior placentas was from a Finnish group and the increase was only 12%.  He told me not to worry, which I'm trying to do.  Fish is also breech at this point.  This doesn't concern me as Finn was breech for her anatomy scan as well.  She settled into position a couple of weeks before, so I don't doubt that he is going to do the same.

In the last week or so, I can feel my pelvic ligaments starting to loosen.  It's not terrible, but occasionally when I shift in bed or am sitting on the floor with Finn and try to stand up too quickly, I'll get the familiar stabbing pain in the crotch area.  I had pretty severe pelvic pain with Finn for the last three months, so although this is minor right now, I don't doubt that it will heighten as time progresses.  This type of pain I'm actually okay with as it makes the end game more convenient.  This is my pelvis loosen for an easier delivery and when it happened with Finn, I kept telling her that she better had fly out with all the pain that I was in (I would say that four pushes is essentially flying in my book).

Fish is also becoming very active.  There have been lots of kicks and jabs already.  I felt his first kick on September 7th (the day before I broke my foot) while watching the Iowa football game at 19 weeks.  (While Finn gave her first kick at 19 weeks also, she decided to kick me during an Ohio State football game -- I'm hoping it was because she wanted me to turn the channel!)  Having an anterior placenta, the first kick came a lot later than I anticipated.  I had felt him moving around in there at around 16 weeks, but was waiting for that first kick.  When it didn't come and didn't come, I was wondering what was amiss.  The placenta on the front side of the uterus acts as a cushion with the abdomen and the kicks are muted until the baby gets bigger.  He is big enough now that I feel all the jabs.  With all that belly, I would hope that he was big enough.