Well, somehow time keeps flying and I'm 5 months pregnant today, or in weeks it'll be 22 tomorrow! I'm past the halfway mark and sometime in the last week and a half I really popped out. I must admit I am loving the belly, even if it does make me feel a little stretched out and breathless at times. Right now baby is around 12 ounces and 7 inches long - my little eggplant! Here is a picture from the 20 week ultrasound. Baby was rolling and kicking and moving around non-stop for the whole appointment, and had a killer heartbeat!
In what I hope will be a continued effort to remember that this blog isn't just about mama and baby, I thought I'd dedicate this post to darling husband and what he's up to these days.
J is just about to start his 6th term of medical school at St. George's University in Grenada. This will bring us to mid-December, and the end of his two years of classwork. After that, it's into the hospitals - finally!! Right now he's struggling to memorize drug names in Pharmacology, delving into diseases in Pathophysiology, and going to the local hospital once a week to see how it all works in real life. Today he did rounds in Orthopedics and saw a patient with osteomyelitis! It's probably much cooler if you know what that means.
On the home front, he has been a very attentive daddy-to-be. Of particular concern to him is my diet. He worries about the water quality, whether meat has been cooked enough, if I'm getting enough protein, if I'm eating enough in general. He even brings home chocolate bars! He has also taken on the role of "Mosquito Hunter" in an effort to ensure that I do not succumb to Dengue fever. I couldn't ask for a better baby daddy!
In fact, given all of his wonderful qualities, I've even decided to forgive him for destroying our computer this weekend. To make a long story short: a) computers can only stand to be dropped so many times, and b) men are not designed for multitasking. It's a good thing he's cute.
Here is a shot of me at 18 weeks, 5 days. There's no denying it these days! I used to hate the term "baby bump", but it has grown on me recently...pun intended. My belly button hasn't popped yet, but I don't think it will be long now. I've been feeling baby moving around in there since about 15 1/2 weeks. My favourite part of every day is when we get to feel baby kicks. J started reading to the belly last week now that the ears are working. I think baby likes Green Eggs and Ham!
Okay, so no one here is really going back to school (I figure J can't really be going back if he never left), but I always get the fever around the beginning of September. I feel unnatural urges for things like buying new pencils - and sharpening them and placing them carefully into a brand new pencil case - and planning out a detailed daily schedule. I long for new school clothes that I can lay out on my bed and plan my first week's wardrobe around. I'm a bit of a planner.
The one thing I'm missing this year in particular is the back to school weather. The smell of summer changing over to fall. The turning of the leaves. The mornings that are just a bit chilly, eliciting last-minute panic about adding an unplanned sweater to my meticulously styled outfit-of-choice. No, we don't talk about words like "chilly" and "sweater" in Grenada. Or seasons at all, for that matter, outside of "dry" and "rainy".
So, for this year, I will live vicariously through the images I see on our American TV programming. I will hop into a cold shower and pretend I've been caught in an early fall rain and relish the goosebumps that will spring up, if only for a second. And I will think of the days in the not-too-distant future when I will have this little one in my belly to buy pencils and new outfits for, no doubt wishing that I could turn back to a time before "back to school".
