From Babycenter:Head to rump, your baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and he weighs almost 7 ounces. He's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that you'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. His blood vessels are visible through his thin skin, and his ears are now in their final position, although they're still standing out from his head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around his nerves, a process that will continue for a year after he's born. If you're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If you're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, but he may hide them from you during an ultrasound.
How your life's changing:
Hungry? An increase in appetite is pretty common about now. Make it count by choosing meals and snacks that are rich in nutrients instead of empty calories (chips, French fries, candy, and other sweets). Bigger, more comfortable clothes are a must now as your appetite and waistline grow.
Your cardiovascular system is undergoing dramatic changes, and during this trimester your blood pressure will probably be lower than usual. Don't spring up too fast from a lying or sitting position or you might feel a little dizzy.
From now on, when you do lie down, it's best to lie on your side — or at least partly tilted to one side. (When you lie flat on your back, your uterus can compress a major vein, leading to decreased blood return to your heart.) Try placing a pillow behind you or under your hip or upper leg for comfort.
If you haven't already had a second-trimester ultrasound, you'll probably have one soon. This painless procedure helps your practitioner check how your baby's growing, screen for certain birth defects, check the placenta and umbilical cord, determine whether the due date you're working with is accurate, and see how many babies you're carrying. During the exam, you might see your baby moving around or sucking his thumb. Bring your partner along, and be sure to ask for a printout for your baby's first photo album!
From Alphamom:
Your Baby:- Is about the size of a baked potato — five-and-a-half inches long.
- Has actual cute little ears and working ear bones and can hear sounds through the amniotic fluid — similar to how things sound to you underwater.
- Is moving, moving, moving. The baby is still small enough that you may not feel every kick and punch yet, but the movements will start getting less “bubble-like” and more “holy crap, that was totally a foot” pretty soon, if they aren’t already.
You:
- May notice some dizziness from time to time, especially if you stand up too quickly or go too many hours without a good snack. Try to stay hydrated and remember to eat every few hours — good stuff like yogurt, nuts, fruits, veggies and cheese. Empty calories like chips and junk food will just make the dizziness worse, not better.
- Might be getting a little uncomfortable at night. The best sleeping position for pregnancy is on your side (when you lie on your back you compress the blood flow to your uterus), but as your pelvis changes and your abdomen gets heavier this can get awfully hard on your hips and legs. Try sleeping with a small pillow between your knees or lower thighs — I finally grabbed a small decorative pillow from our bed and found it made all the difference in the world without taking up too much room or making me feel too hot at night like regular pillows or those full-body maternity pillows did last time. (While very comfortable, trying to roll over with one of those big things was just a giant exercise in AWK-WARD.)
- Oh, and let’s discuss our bladders too. You might soon find yourself at that lovely stage when you just can’t seem to fully empty your bladder in a single bathroom run. I don’t know whether there’s just something baby-related blocking the exit or what, but I pee and then stand up and realize that I STILL have to pee. I remember hitting this point last time and using a trick Heather Armstrong described at Dooce — lean allllll the way forward while peeing, with your torso as parallel to the floor as you can manage. It really works, and now every time I pee I wonder how any woman ever managed to make it through pregnancy without the Internet.
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Nausea may have subsided but still no appetite or serious cravings. I pretty much eat because I have to, because if I don't then I know I will be sick shortly. So no hunger pangs, ever, just some looming nausea that indicates.... Time to Eat Now. And then the looming nausea goes away. My standard, daily, fail-safe breakfast has been (for 3 months now): one scrambled egg with cheese on a slice of toasted sesame Ezekial bread with butter. Makes Baby Saltine Cracker happy.
Previous symptoms have waned, but now new symptoms have cropped up. The nightly Jimmy Legs are getting worse. No solution thus far!
Our Second Trimester Anatomy U/S is next week! Boy or Girl? Boy or Girl?! Boy or Girl!!!!
I get asked a lot if we have a preference, and I know the standard answer is "We don't care as long as it's healthy blahblahblah". And I am anything but Standard. Let me just say that my list for girl names is much longer than my list for boy names, if that means anything. Some women say that they just 'knew' or had a feeling, that it was going to be a xyz. At this point, to me that is like assigning a gender to your spleen. I think that 'premonition' is really just a mask for their 'preference'.
My brain currently is in a tug- of-war between 'Practical' and 'Pretty'. Since I don't know the sex yet, the nursery design in my head has been leaning towards aqua/brown, turquoise, cafe latte, etc. However, I come across a crib set in pink toile and I dissolve into a pile of weepy maternal, must-buy-this-now hormones. Oh, and owls have become my latest obsession. Boy or girl, this nursery will be decked out with some hooters. Ha.
Must have this bag from Etsy.
