Whooah, we're half way there...

As the Bon Jovi song goes, we're half way there and livin' on a prayer! I'm 20 weeks pregnant, Britt is 6 weeks shy of graduating from law school, and searching for a job...that's a lot to take in all at once. But we are grateful and excited about these big changes coming our way. God is good and never fails us! We are praying like crazy over our sweet baby, over Britt's upcoming exams, the BAR exam in July, and his job search. It's hard to fathom that in 20 short weeks we will no longer be a family of two, but a family of THREE. As anxious as I am for that time to come, I also want to freeze {or just slow down} my pregnancy and keep this baby inside me for as long as possible. I know I will miss being pregnant when it's over! Here's a look at what being 20 weeks pregnant looks like...

How far along: 20 weeks

Size of baby: Baby is about the size of a banana. She/he is about 6.5 inches from head to bottom, and about 10 inches from head to toe. That is crazy to me. Our baby is almost a foot long! Baby weighs 11 ounces right now according to our last ultrasound...inching closer and closer to a pound!

Weight gain: Once again, hard to look at the scale each day! But at the doctor last Friday I had gained 10 pounds...double digits...blah! However, the doctor made me feel better when she said 10 pounds at the halfway mark is great. I'll just continue to eat healthy and exercise so I don't gain more than I'm supposed to!

Stretch marks: Still a negative and still using cocoa butter.

Gender: We could have found out at our last appointment, but we didn't. It was not as hard as I had expected. We went through the whole ultrasound looking at all of our baby's vital organs and saw that everything looked perfect. By the time it was time to look at the gender it honestly didn't matter. We have a healthy baby, that's what I was focusing on! The sonographer turned off the monitor and did her thing to make sure the gender was healthy and that was that.

Movement: All the time! And Britt felt the baby kick for the first time on Friday morning! He usually sleeps through my alarm in the mornings, but for some reason we were both awake before the alarm went off. Baby was awake too, which is usually not the case right when I wake up. Anyway, I felt the baby moving like crazy and it felt stronger than it sometimes does. I told Britt to see if he could feel it and he did...it was the coolest moment!

Sleep: Aside from waking up at 4am every morning to go to the restroom, all is good in this department.

Food cravings: Still nothing crazy.

What I miss: The usual. Beer, wine, sushi. To be honest, sushi is what I miss the most. I think I just miss the idea of beer and wine.

Symptoms: I have occasional back/hip pain, but nothing unmanageable.

Belly button: Definitely still an in-y.

Wedding rings: Still on!

Maternity clothes: I'm magically still in all of my regular clothes--pants included. They are still tighter than usual, but they still button and zip without a problem! I'm ready for the weather to get warm and stay that way so I can sport all of my summer dresses!

Best moment of the week: Getting to see our sweet baby on the ultrasound. Seriously. What a miracle. I had never given much thought to anything being wrong with our baby, but when we went for the big ultrasound where they make sure everything is developing properly, etc. I did have a bit of fear in the back of my mind. "What if something is wrong with our baby?" "How will I help it and make sure it's ok?" But as we went through the ultrasound and the sonographer showed us each little part of the baby she would say "perfect" and "beautiful". I felt a sense of relieve. It was so amazing to see the baby's brain, heart {all four chambers}, kidneys {there's two there!}, arms and legs {all the bones are there}, fingers and toes {we have all 10!}, the umbilical cord {all three vessels are there}, etc. We even got to see the blood flowing through the baby. It's amazing how far technology has come. The baby was being feisty, too...she/he had their head nestled in my pelvis and would not flip over for us to see it's sweet face very easily. Baby must have gotten that from its Daddy because feisty is not in my description! All that being said, we praise the Lord that we got to see our baby and that it is HEALTHY.  We also got a DVD of the ultrasound...how exciting, right?! We planned on making copies and sending it to our families to watch, but then we watched it.... And we decided that no one else could possibly find that DVD exciting but us! Perhaps if we set it to music it would be more entertaining! It is still fun to watch, though. We got a few pictures from the ultrasound...I know it's hard to get excited about the picture when you can really not tell much of anything, but we look at those pictures daily in awe of how precious our baby is!

Close up of baby's face :)

 The sweetest foot I've ever seen. I love when it kicks in my tummy!

Easter weekend we went to Atlanta. We enjoyed going to Buckhead Church for the Easter service. We love Buckhead Church and struggle to find a church we love just as much here in Birmingham. It was great to listen to Andy Stanley deliver a message about our Savior. After church a hodgepodge of Britt's family came to lunch at Debbie and Al's. I say a hodgepodge in the nicest way! Family from Al's side came, as well as family from Debbie's side. It's so nice to see two sides of the family be together to celebrate such a special occasion. We enjoyed each other's company and eat LOTS of food. I am so fortunate to have married into a family that I love like my own!

The night before Easter we dyed our Easter eggs!

I think they turned out pretty :)

Sunday morning we went to Buckhead Church for Easter service...Andy Stanley was great as always!

After church pictures!

 We had SO much good food...I made this feta asparagus recipe. 

 Debbie worked hard on the pretty table! Happy Easter!

 

Close up of the table. 

Grandmommy made this bunny cake for a centerpiece. 

We changed clothes to be more comfy for lunch!

It's hard to capture, but Debbie got lots of practice for Grand-parenting duty...since there were so many kids coming over she got out all kinds of toys! 

That's all I know for now. Check back soon for another update on our growing family!
-j&b