Oh hey, want to hear about my pregnancy?

It’s good! I am ready to officially say it’s good.

In fact, I have absolutely nothing unusual to report. Hurrah for a totally normal, boring baby!

This is the first time in a while I’ve felt able to write much about it, for fear of jinxing things. At my 19 week ultrasound the tech was a little concerned. My placenta was lower than they wanted to see and I had high fluid levels. Apparently that’s a soft marker for a lot of birth or genetic defects, so they wanted to get me in to a level 2 ultrasound soon. Unfortunately “soon” was a full 3 weeks later.

It wouldn’t have been quite such a nerve-wracking three weeks if the doctor hadn’t made a super casual, off-hand remark about how if something WAS tragically wrong we’d want to know sooner rather than later. 3 WEEKS IS NOT SOON. If she had just left out the part about the teeny, tiny chance of a fatal or life threatening problem I could have just complained about my heartburn and sore hips and never-ending morning nausea. Instead I lay in bed every night and thought about…possibilities.

I DID keep myself from Googling though. Mostly since “high fluid levels” turns up way too many results to process, let alone freak out about.

ANYWAY. At my level 2 ultrasound the tech and the special high-risk doctor both declared my baby perfectly fine. My placenta moved up and my fluid levels are only on the high level of normal, not actually high. The baby looks healthy and my screenings came back with very low chances of a genetic issue. I am extremely relieved.

I didn’t want to talk about any of this until I was sure – or as sure as you can possibly be before the baby becomes an outside baby – that things were fine. Plus also, thinking about what MIGHT be wrong reminded me of how many things COULD go wrong and what a crazy delicate thing pregnancy can be. Tomorrow I am 24 weeks, which is viability (technically). So now I am ready to complain about all the trivial stuff.

That might take FOREVER, so let’s start with the big one.

OMG MY BUTT. Not, like, the delicate unspeakable parts. All of it, from my back down to my thighs. The internet says the horrible stabbing pain is sciatica, but I had what I thought was sciatica with previous babies. This is WAY worse. This is like the difference between a paper cut and having a finger chopped off. The other thing the internet says is that the best ways to treat it are “stretching” and “resting” and “maybe some acupuncture”. I have no time for this “resting” thing and I can’t spend my days in child’s pose, so at my next OB appointment I guess I’ll be asking about alternative treatments. I feel extremely lucky I can spend a lot of time on the couch or lying down when it gets too bad, but until the children can do the grocery shopping and errand running themselves there are going to be painful days.

I’m just hoping I don’t get SPD on top of it. That’s the one where you feel like you’ve been kicked in the crotch with a steel-toed boot. Even rolling over in bed is enough to make you cry, so THAT on top of THIS would probably land me on a motorized scooter for the next 16 weeks.

And now, some blurry, generic ultrasound photos I took pictures of with my phone!

Based on no actual info besides those pictures, I’m currently predicting “girl”, since the profile looks just like Caroline. Both kids are on team girl but E is swearing it’s a boy. Oddly, I am not in the least bit tempted to find out anymore. I’m SUPER excited about waiting until the delivery room and being surprised along with everyone else.

Another family photo album in lieu of a real blog post. Not that my real posts are ever brilliant to begin with, so no big loss.

We very ambitiously decided to head into Washington on Labor Day despite not getting home until 1 am, one hangover, one separated pelvis, and one child we knew was probably going to miss nap time. My folks only live 20 minutes from DC (when there’s no traffic) so we were prepared for a short visit if we couldn’t handle it. A quick escape proved unnecessary and we made it about half way down the Mall before the pregnant one started complaining too much as we had to give up on seeing the World War II memorial. That’s what happens when you park illegally by the Capitol building all the way at one end of the Mall and think “yeah, we can TOTALLY walk 4 miles in three hours with a stroller and still see several large museums and monuments.” You miss stuff.

Air & Space Museum. Did you know it's the most visiting museum of any kind anywhere in the world? That's the kind of cool stuff you can learn when you eavesdrop on the tourguides. All the good stuff is on the ceiling so Baby Evan spent a lot of time like this.

For the most-visited museum it was pretty not crowded on a holiday. Look closely, do you see the hobo baby in this picture?

Family Picture!! Tired Baby Looks Tired, but he did really well despite the sun and the crowds.

There was no way to accurately capture with a picture how cool this sculpture is. When you walk past, it appears to be turning but really it's just the perspective. Yeah, sorry, that didn't help. Maybe there's a video on YouTube or something.

Natural History Museum, home of my favorite thing to visit in DC - The Hope Diamond

See Baby Evan's blurry little hand? He's signing "fish! fish! fish!!!!" He likes them almost as much as dogs.

More fish. Ancient, scary, giant-toothed fish, but still fish. Strangely enough, he didn't react AT ALL to the dinosaurs. Maybe because he doesn't know the sign.

I mean, even *I* like the T-Rex. You'd think a kid would too. Nope.

Part of an elephant. Maybe. Baby Evan liked poking it.

24 Weeks - it's a Good Amount of pregnant. We've reached a turning point on viability (not that I WANT to have a super-premie but knowing the baby would have a shot if something unexpected happened is nice), I'm not horribly uncomfortable, I still have plenty of things to wear, and I haven't reached the "swollen bloated manatee" stage yet. Can I just stay here?

The whole trip I couldn’t stop commenting on how much I LOVE Washington. It’s such a great tourist destination. You can break up lots of outside walking with museums that are sciencey or arty or historical or fun and they’re all free. The Metro is super easy to navigate, there are tons of places to eat, and most of the time the crowds are manageable. E and I talked about our chances of ever getting transferred to the DC area and decided if it becomes and option we will definitely take it. Of course, it could be 10 years before that happens and my folks don’t plan to live there to offer free babysitting forever, but if they haven’t moved it would be the perfect icing on a lovely just-southern-enough cake. Of course, then I remembered the high crime rate and the insane cost of living and the constant, never-ending politics and the TRAFFIC and how much I complained about the total lack of fun stuff to do when I was growing up there. But hey, no where is perfect.

If you’re feeling clicky today, I’d appreciate it! I think I’m on page three. Maybe four. Shamefully uncool, is what I’m saying, and my ego could use the extra bump. XOXO!