Nineteen

According to BabyCenter, at nineteen weeks, “Your baby equals a large heirloom tomato in size and weighs 8 1/2 ounces. (length: 6 inches, head to bottom).”

At our last ultrasound, the baby was already measuring a bit big. Viva was 8 pounds, 4 ounces at birth, which isn’t huge, but that’s the biggest baby born on my side of the family within the collective memory. I weighed 2 full pounds less than that when I was born. My people are small folk.

In contrast, my mother-in-law recently told me she weighed 10 pounds at birth. I immediately told her that had I known that ahead of time, I would have seriously reconsidered marrying her son. But then I remembered that for years, her mother (my grandmother-in-law) actually celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday on the wrong day. It wasn’t until my mother-in-law was an adult, about to be married and needing a copy of her birth certificate, that she learned she was born the following day. So I’m thinking perhaps any “facts” related to her birth should be taken with a grain of salt.

This morning, as I was sitting down to write this post, I couldn’t actually remember how far along this pregnancy is, and it struck me how different this pregnancy is from my first. The first was carefully planned and hoped for. I was kind of fanatical with the baby books, we took a Polaroid of my ever-expanding belly every week and noted the date, I kept a pregnancy journal, and I obsessively researched car seats, strollers, etc.

This time around, I have maybe three pictures of myself pregnant thus far. While we weren’t expecting to have another infant [some of you may know that our only adding-to-the-family plans, which were swaddled in the gauzy fabric of a vague “someday,” involved adopting a toddler and then at some point later, a puppy] and thus gave away all our baby stuff, at least I don’t have to re-research it. The infant car seat we had last time around is still one of the best out there, so I’ll just get it (or register for it) in a different fabric. I’m not buying a travel system as I believe they are a waste of money. We’ll start it with a Snap-n-Go stroller frame and move on from there. We are inheriting a crib. I need a bouncy seat and a Boppy, some diapers and some clothes, some bottles and some burp cloths, and we’ll be good to go. My only pregnancy journal is this blog (hi!).

And yet I think it’ll all be just fine.

Baby Names: Viva declared recently that we should name the baby Rosie. Have no idea where she came up with this, but have told her I will take it into consideration.

This week, when people ask what we’re naming the baby, I tell them “Cleopatra” and watch their eyes roll back in their heads. It’s kind of fun. Wait until next week, when I tell them we’ve changed our minds and are naming her “Pandora!” Whew, I'm gettin' all kinds of crazy over here!