20 Weeks

It's amazing what 8 hours of sleep will do to change a perspective!

Last night, I went to bed not wanting to have a belly picture taken or weigh myself in, as I'd previously planned.

Today? Well, today I say, yup, I did eat too much. Yes, I do have to be more careful to take care of myself and this baby so I'm not tempted to find what I need in unhealthy places. Let's move on, shall we?

Total weight gained: about 8 1/2 pounds

I'm looking rather maternal, yes?

(Baby K. is about the length of a banana or a cantaloupe. Photo comes from a slide show found at Babycenter.com.)

My baby is about 6 1/2 inches long and and weighs somewhere around 10.6 ounces, so most of that is everything else my baby needs to thrive- plus maybe some bloat.

Recently, I've been craving food from Whole Foods' hot bar.  Lucky for me, I'm meeting a friend near one today (I can't just go to Whole Foods whenever I want to because my closest one is 45 minutes away. That's probably a good thing for my bank account.), so I'll load up on some goodies to enjoy whenever my next hunger pangs hit..which will likely not be far away. I've also been wanting more Green Monster smoothies and protein powder to put in them. (Does anyone have any protein powder recommendations? I'm a bit of a novice.)

Along with my move toward (real food, vegetarian) intuitive eating, exercise has been mostly following an intuitive path, as well. Some days, I feel like I'm building muscles just going up stairs. I make sure to park at the far end of parking lots, take the stairs instead of the elevator, take any walks with walking buddies as I can get (although I wouldn't mind taking a few more each week), continue attending my prenatal yoga class whenever it is available, and dance whenever the opportunity presents itself. I have run half marathons, done Taebo, The Firm, spinning, and Body Pump (all pre-pregnancy), and even before I was pregnant, I felt my absolute best when I was walking, practicing yoga, and maybe getting in a few short runs.  Post-pregnancy, I plan to continue with the same activities that have me feeling great, perhaps with the addition of more challenging yoga classes and a Couch-to-5k program.

On my "to do" list in the coming week:

Iron out whether or not Tim's insurance covers the local birthing center. (I'm losing my job beginning July 1st and will be hopping over to Tim's insurance.) I was previously planning on switching over there (and almost completely done with with process), but it's become obvious recently that they might not be covered. This is a little strange, as birthing centers are much cheaper for insurance companies to cover than hospital visits. But if not, it's no big deal. I have already comes to term with the fact that flexibility during pregnancy and birth is very important.  (Really- I have a great OB/GYN, but I just want to do things a little more naturally than American hospitals tend to do them). I'll just need to sign up for birthing classes elsewhere- and start the process of interviewing doulas.