16 weeks (and 4 days)

I took a delightful walk around Lake Harriet with Kate yesterday, so I decided to change up the scenery for my belly pic o the week. It kind of looks like the bandstand is a hat in this photo :)

This week again has been uneventful in terms of pregnancy. My pants are starting to fit tighter, but I can still wear most of my jeans. It was when I tried to find some shorts/capris to wear on my walk that it became evident that my abdomen IS in fact getting bigger... in the photo above I am sporting the bella band. I'm still able to sleep on my stomach, which is great. My midwife told me that I can sleep however is comfortable for me, and that it will be uncomfortable long before it would hurt the baby. It's starting to get where there's some pressure I notice, but I'm ususally half on my side, half on my stomach which works just fine so far. I will sleep on my stomach until I absolutely can't anymore, and I might shed a few tears on the day when it becomes impossible.

I had some issues with sleeping and having headaches this week - kind of a vicious cycle where I'd get a worse headache the less I slept, but the worse the headache, the harder it was for me to fall asleep. Annoying. Finally on Thursday night I got a good night of sleep and miraculously the headache was gone :) Other than that, I've felt great! So great that I can forget I'm pregnant. I even had a dream the other night that I totally forgot I was pregnant and started doing tequila shots. When I was good and drunk from all that tequila I freaked out when I remembered that - oh crap! I'm pregnant and not supposed to be doing shots of tequila!!! :) (I don't even do tequila shots when not pregnant, by the way...)

I was discussing with Kate yesterday how stupid I used to think all of the "rules" were when it came to pregnancy - no deli meat? I remember the first time I heard my coworker Leigh say that and thought, no WAY would I ever abide by that stupid rule. Then I got pregnant, and it was like this protective switch was flipped. Good thing, I guess. Now I follow almost all of the rules... I haven't had unheated deli meat, I (mostly) avoid soft cheeses where I'm not sure if they are pasteurized, I limit my caffeine intake (I still have one drink a day though, which some people seem to think is nutty), I haven't had any alcohol... etc. I did read once (on a message board) that softserve ice cream (like from Dairy Queen) also carries a risk of listeria. I decided to just ignore that one :) I figure if it wasn't on the very extensive list my midwife gave me, it's just not true.

Speaking of message boards, I am proud to say that for the past WEEK, I have avoided going to ANY pregnancy message boards. I used to frequent one in particular, the bump, and while 98% of the posts were entertaining and helpful, the 2% that were horror stories just started getting to me. When we were at the cabin last weekend, Ben noticed that I was much more positive about the pregnancy and not as paranoid. When we got back home and to the internet, I logged onto the message board and the first 2 posts I saw were about stillbirths and finding severe abnormalities at the 20 week ultrasound. While I obviously know these things are possibilities, reading about them frequently just doesn't help my state of mind! I decided to quit cold turkey, and I've been feeling better ever since.