We’re at the halfway point of this journey. It’s starting to feel a little more real as I physically change and preparations are under way, though it still hasn’t actually hit me that we’ll be in charge of raising a tiny baby into an adult starting in just twenty weeks.

This four week period was incredibly busy with travel three out of the four weekends, with back to back weddings the last two weekends. No wonder if flew by. Greg and I had a few fun date nights together. We saw Neil degrade Tyson speak and then we folded laundry to celebrate our second anniversary. It is the cotton anniversary, after all. We had grand plans to celebrate in San Francisco, but I wasn’t feeling great so we opted for staying in and watching TV. Basically we already have a newborn. Pregnancy wise, there were two exciting changes this month. First, my size. I’m choosing to see this as a positive. I woke up one morning (the Friday of week 17 to be exact) and suddenly looked pregnant. Excuse the work bathroom selfie, but I had to snap this to send to my mom. Holy cow, there’s a baby in there.

You can see the difference as well in my “official” weekly photos, Martian did some growing in week 17! I also love that you can start to see the change in our weather. We’ve gone from summer to fall in Seattle. I’m welcoming the cooler temps but I miss the long days and bright sunshine. Can’t believe next spring it will be #50mileswiththedoodleandmartian. Maybe I need to work on a new hashtag. 

The second exciting pregnancy change is that I can feel Martian! Around week 17 I decided the little flutters were most likely the baby and since then they have gotten a little stronger and more frequent. We haven’t managed to time it well enough for Greg to feel yet, but in the last week they’ve become strong enough to feel externally. I hope he gets to experience it soon.

The most exciting event of the month, besides seeing so many friends and family at weddings, was our anatomy scan during week 20. Martian was much more of a mover than during our 12 week scan, which was a lot of fun to watch. Everything is looking great with Martian and with me. No gender surprises were ruined. In fact, the technician mentioned that it would have been difficult to find out had we wanted to know. The lab does not send gender in their report, so even if she did figure it out, our midwives are not aware. It’s nice that there isn’t the chance they might accidentally slip and tell us.

Our favorite two shots from the scan are below. The lab’s printer was out of ribbon and instead they gave us a CD with every shot on it. Here s/he is saying hi and giving us a good look at his or her profile. Can’t wait to meet you in 20 weeks, Martian! (I called it “little buddy” during the ultrasound. We’re going to need to work on separate nicknames for the baby and the dog.)