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| Hiking in Zion National Park, up to Scout's Lookout - 21 weeks! |
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| Capitol Reef National Park Carrying two babies, Cora on my back in the Ergo and baby Cashew in my tummy :) Plus my little man holding my hand. Such an amazing trip, creating a great love for the outdoors with our family. |
How far along.... 23 weeks! More than half-way there now. Crazy, crazy. Each pregnancy flies by faster than the last. I wish time would slow down so I could enjoy these moments longer. My doctor officially put my due date at October 4th, so my c-section will be scheduled at 39 weeks, or around September 27th. I won't have an exact date until two months prior.
How am I feeling.... Awesome! No nausea at all anymore. I am just eating all the things, all the time. Even so, my weight gain has been in check so far. We went on a road trip to southern Utah to several national parks and I did quite a bit of hiking, even the strenuous hike up to Angel's Landing in Zion, and it felt great. I need to keep that up now that we are home as it helps later in pregnancy and with recovery after my c-section. I have no complaints at all! I really do love being pregnant.
How is baby doing.... Great! I've been feeling movements for quite a while now, but just this week baby Cashew has been so active!!!! My gosh, I feel baby all day long, before bed, when I wake up in the morning... it's just constant. Sounds like G and C too. We love a wild bunch over here haha. Growth looked good and our anatomy scan went great. There is one thing the high-risk doctor {see below for that appointment} pointed out. My placenta has a little shelf on one side where it attaches to the uterus. He said in a small amount of people with this, it can affect the growth of the baby. It hasn't yet, but he said they will probably have me back for ultrasounds every 4 to 6 weeks at their office to be sure.
Milestones, etc.... We didn't share this with many people, but my 2nd trimester blood work came back with an elevated risk of Down Syndrome. 1/150 to be exact. My OB referred me to a high-risk doctor for genetic counseling and further testing, if we wanted it. And we did, most definitely we did. We wanted to know for sure. Talk about freaking out, worrying, anxiety-inducing, crying, etc. It was awful. Just talking about the what ifs, what would we do if something was wrong, all of it was just terrible and sad. We went to see the doctor on May 17th. We talked to the counselor, had an extensive ultrasound and then decided to do an amniocentesis so that we had 99.99% accurate results. The procedure wasn't painful, just a very strange feeling deep inside. And the cramping for the following three days was weird and scary, plus the worry of that tiny chance of a miscarriage due to the procedure. This was right before we left on vacation too. It was a lot all at once. The results take 7 to 10 days to get back and on day 10, while driving through the middle of nowhere, my phone thankfully had reception and we got good news: baby is fine! No Down Syndrome or Spina Bifida. All chromosomes look normal. Phew. Talk about the worst wait ever. I am so thankful that everything is okay.
