21 Weeks Pregnant and Craving Sushi

I’m expecting Baby #3 in March and thought it would be fun to share periodic pregnancy updates along the way. I’m 21 weeks pregnant this week so I’m over halfway—this pregnancy seems to be flying past!

About the baby:  Baby is apparently about the size of a carrot (three-quarters of a pound) and can hear my voice now.  He or she also has eyebrows and eyelids.

Total weight gain: um… let me go check… ten or twelve pounds, I think (I can’t remember my exact weight before I got pregnant). Gee, that seems like a lot for only 21 weeks pregnant as I gained twenty pounds total with each Sunshine and Lily.  This might be a bigger baby…

Sleep: Not so good. I’m showing enough now that I can’t sleep on my tummy anymore, which is my best sleep position. So for three nights this week, it took me two or three hours to fall asleep (I also had a cold, which didn’t help, as I was sniffling and coughing, and Lily had a cold too so when I started falling asleep she’d start coughing…). Anyway, I’m hoping I get used to sleeping on my side soon.

Morning sickness: gone, thankfully. It finished around the end of my first trimester, just like with Sunshine and Lily. I was taking Diclectin as I had bad morning sickness again this time, like with Lily. It’s hard to chase two energetic kids when you have no energy at all. (They would have probably been fine with watching TV all day with me, but I didn’t want to do that.)

Maternity Clothes: Yep. Maternity jeans are great now that I’m 21 weeks pregnant, though I don’t have many shirts that go with low-rise pants. I’ve started pulling out my old collection of “baggy” T-shirts. And yesterday I discovered the jumper I’m wearing in this picture and realized that since I’m not nursing Lily anymore, I can wear dresses again! At least until my tummy gets too big for the dress… 🙂

Food cravings: SUSHI! 🙂 Even the made-ahead sushi in the grocery store looked good. I’m tempted to go out for vegan sushi with my neighbour. It’s the textures of sushi that I love—the mix of rice and seaweed and crunchy and soft.

Food aversions: Coffee. Sweets. I used to have a huge sweet tooth, but lately I haven’t wanted desserts at much.  I haven’t even made cookies in quite a while.

Stretchmarks: nope, but I didn’t get any with my first two pregnancies either.

Midwife’s Appointment: Everything normal for 21 weeks pregnant. I love listening to the baby’s heartbeat. Lily liked playing with the toys at the midwife’s office (Sunshine was at preschool). We talked about gestational diabetes (low risk for me—no family history of diabetes and no diabetes with my first two pregnancies—so I opted not to take the test, unless I start measuring big).

Movement: Tiny little flutterings, which I usually only notice at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. It’s fun.

Belly Button: Since I don’t have one… it’s normal. (I had an umbilical hernia as a baby, which required surgery to fix, so I don’t have a belly button. My mom also had an umbilical hernia, and Sunshine had a minor one but it fixed itself so she still has a belly button.)

Gender: Don’t know and won’t find out until the baby is born. We’re old-fashioned—we wait. Although Sunshine has been saying, since we first told her about the baby, that it’s going to be a boy. She wants to name him Diego or Mike the Knight.

What I’m looking forward to: Maternity photos (if I can find a photographer). I didn’t get pictures done with Sunshine or Lily, and actually have very few pregnant pictures at all (I’m the one who takes the pictures in our family, usually, and it’s hard to point the camera at myself).

Sunshine saw a picture on Pinterest of a pregnant mom with a bow wrapped around her tummy, so she keeps asking me when we can put a bow on my tummy.  I told her not at 21 weeks pregnant as my bump isn’t big enough yet; maybe after 30 weeks sometime. The problem is that all my friends who do photography are back in Alberta, and we’re not planning to go back before the baby is born. (So if you know a good photographer on Vancouver Island, let me know…)

What I miss: Sushi. Sleeping on my tummy. Coffee. 🙂

How did you feel at 21 weeks pregnant?

Follow along with my pregnancy…

• Pregnancy the Third Time Around!
• 26 weeks and loving my maternity clothes!
• 32 weeks and baby kicking!
• 38 weeks and ready to pop!
• My homebirth story!

Is this your first pregnancy or your third? After having my fifth baby, I compiled all my pregnancy notes and research into a book for new moms! Beginner’s Guide to Growing Baby: Tips to Help You Through All Four Trimesters includes everything I’ve learned through five pregnancies, as well as the wisdom and advice of my good friend, Anna Eastland. She’s a mom of 9 babies, including one in heaven. If we could have you over for coffee and sit down to chat about bellies and babies, this is what we’d tell you! Between us, we’ve got you covered for everything you need to know about a natural, healthy pregnancy!

Beginner’s Guide to Growing Baby is available on Amazon.