I’ve been majorly slacking on my weekly pregnancy updates. I have no excuse other than the fact that I got lazy. Sorry!

Remember that nasty case of round ligament pains? Well, they certainly contributed to a major belly growth spurt — just look at the difference between weeks 18 and 19!

…but then again, my gorging on tons of yummy food while we were on our babymoon may have had a lot to do with that growth.

After our second trip to the ER, the pregnancy has (thankfully) been free of complications. Sure, we discovered that that I have an anterior placenta and that the baby is in breech position, but we don’t need to worry about those conditions until I am much further along.

And with the major physical developments finished, there isn’t much on the developmental front either. The baby can now hear, has eyebrows and eyelids, and is swallowing regularly with the recent budding of taste buds.

One fun fact I learned yesterday is that the taste of the amniotic fluid changes depending on what I eat. And because research has shown that babies who were exposed to certain tastes in utero (via the amniotic fluid) were more eager to eat foods with that same taste after birth, my diet now becomes even more influential to the baby’s likes and dislikes. What horrible news for J — he’s always complaining that I’m a picky eater!

At our 19-week anatomy scan, we discovered that the baby is measuring at around the 50th percentile for overall growth, and she was estimated to weigh 9 ounces. So I’m going to take the following average measurements to heart…

19 Weeks (6 inches crown to rump, 8½ ounces):

20 Weeks (10 inches head to toe — starting week 20 they measure head to toe, not crown to rump — and 10 ounces):

21 Weeks (10½ inches long, ¾ of a pound):

And here’s a belly shot I took today at 21 weeks. I completely forgot to take one last week, so you can see quite a difference in the two weeks since I took the last:

My mother commented the other day that while my belly is certainly growing, the rest of my body seems to be shrinking. Hooray! And the scale doesn’t lie — I’m still a pound or two under my heaviest at 16 weeks.

One last, exciting news: I had reported that starting last Friday, I was able to feel the baby move from the outside. Now, those movements are more regular and even developing a pattern (she seems more apt to bounce around when I am lying flat on my back, and at nighttime…she’s already a night owl!). I’m still fascinated by this new development! It feels so weird yet so magical to be able to feel your baby moving inside of you. And frankly, I’m loving it.

P.S. — J can now feel her too. Every night as we settle into bed, he’ll put his hand on my belly and as soon as she starts kicking, he’ll whisper, “Baby girl, go to sleep so that mommy can get some rest.”