Week 18

I turned 18 weeks on June 16th.

Baby is 5-5.5 inches crown to rump, and about 5.25 ounces.

I don't think I had any real strong cravings this week.  Ice cream I guess, but I'm always craving ice cream.  I've been enjoying chocolate lately. 

I had a couple new symptoms pop up this week.  I've had a little bit of round ligament pain previously, but it really showed up this week.  A lot of what I read online said that RLP will only last for a few seconds, when you get up or sneeze, but I've had RLP last hours.  I called my midwives' office to be sure that it wasn't something else to be worried about and they told me it sounds like RLP and that it can last for extended periods of time.  I have noticed my stomach getting bigger this week, so it makes sense that I'd have more RLP. 

I also noticed at the beginning of week 18 linea nigra starting to appear.  This really shocked me.  Linea nigra is the darker pigmented line that goes down your belly button as your ab muscles pull apart.  First, I thought it was way too soon for this, as I'm not very big yet, and second I had heard that fair skinned women usually don't get this.  Mine is really light, but definitely there. 

I've been pretty superstitious and cautious and haven't wanted to buy anything for the baby yet.  However, this week I made my first purchase.  Babylegs was having a 70% off sale, so I scored a few baby legwarmers for Rebecca.  I got $80 worth of stuff for $26.  I couldn't pass that up.

I'm starting to get anxious for the anatomy scan.  We've had all good news so far and I'm hoping we get a clean bill of health in a couple weeks.  As I've done throughout this pregnancy, I've started to worry about what could go wrong.  Nick tells me not to worry but I tell him the baby likes stress.  She's been living with stress since week 3, she thrives on it. 

I thought I maybe felt the baby a couple times this week, but I'm not really sure.  I feel like I should have felt movement by now, but some women just feel it later.  My friend who just had a baby said she didn't feel movement until the middle of her 20th week.  And who knows, maybe I have an anterior placenta which would make me not feel movement until later. 

I leave for Maui on Wednesday!  It will be a nice distraction until our anatomy scan.  I come home on the 3rd, we'll celebrate the 4th of July, then we'll go to the anatomy scan the morning of the 5th.  Hopefully I can breath another sigh of relief afterwards. 

I've started dreaming about Rebecca a lot!  The first one was a bad one, that we got news there was something wrong with Rebecca at our anatomy scan.  The next night I dreamt I went into labor at 18.5 weeks!  However, Rebecca was perfectly healthy and weighed 7.5lbs and was 21 inches long.  LOL.  I said to the doctor, "What the hell?  How big was she going to be if I went full term?"  Last night I had a dream she was sitting in front of me and I was smiling at her and she was smiling back.  She had fine blond hair.  Her hair color is one thing I wonder a lot about.  Will it be blond, red, brown?  There's a lot of options with our genes!  I have to admit, I kind of want her to have blond hair so she looks like me, but this is obviously not of high concern for me!