19 Weeks

Vernix caseosa, a greasy white substance made of lanugo, oil and dead skin cells (yum) now coats baby's skin, shielding it from the amniotic fluid. (Picture yourself after a nine-month bath, and the need for protection makes sense.) You might actually get to see the vernix at birth, especially if baby is premature.

Today I'm 19 weeks and 6 days. Over half way there!! Where has this time flown?!

I'm starting to have to slow down a bit already. I find that if we spend a day out and about, I need a whole day+ to recover. Just this past week I've started having pains on my sides when I move around. I'm assuming it's just round ligament pains, but man are they painful and annoying! I've also been having a whole bunch of braxton hicks contractions (in fact, having one right now!) drinking water doesn't seem to help them anymore. Just another annoying part of pregnancy that I have to deal with I guess! I'm not to worried about them right now, but I am worried that in 10+ weeks they will turn into the real thing! Lets hope that doesn't happen for another 15 weeks at least!

So those are the painful annoying things going on in the pregnancy right now. The good things going on are baby bump growth and baby movement! I feel like this past week or so my belly has grown quite a bit. I feel like I'm as big as I was at 7 months with Lily already. But then again, I carried pretty small with Lily for the longest time, and didn't really start looking pregnant until 7 months! It's bound to start showing sooner with twins!

Here's a picture from of the bump from 16 weeks 5 days, not much going on yet:



I'll see if I can get a picture taken this week so we can see how much the babies have grown since then!

The other great thing, as I said before, is the babies are kicking a whole bunch now! For a couple weeks now I've feeling distinct kicks more, and less of the fluttering movement. I felt baby B kick from the outside for the first time on the 24th. Over that past couple weeks their kicks have gotten stronger, and now I feel the kicks on the outside all the time now! It's so much fun! We're still waiting for Sean or Lily to feel them. We just need to have their hands on the right spot of my belly at the right time! I'm sure Sean will feel them sometime this week! I'm looking forward to it!

Not much else going on in pregnancy land. My next appointment and ultra sound aren't until the end of August, so we've just got a lot of waiting to do until we can see the babies again! Welcome to what they call the "boring" trimester!