21 weeks!!

I now have fewer days to go than I have already been through. That is GREAT news. I feel tons of kicks and movements now and Judd has felt them, too! Sometimes, I'll go get on the bed and stay there for long periods of time just to feel her better. It's really made things feel so much more 'real' than they did before.

21 weeks

• Caroline can suck her thumb now! Awwwww...
• Her bone marrow starts making her blood cells this week. This was previously done by the liver and spleen. Definitely a good thing!
• She now swallows enough amniotic fluid to get some sugars from it.
• She can also digest those sugars. Yay!
• She's about 10 1/2 inches long - from HEAD TO TOE. (Remember last week I told you that her measurements had previously been from head to butt...so...no, she didn't grow 5 inches in a week.)
• She weighs allllllmost a pound! How exciting!

I still don't think I've grown much more than I had around 16 weeks...and I'm starting to wonder how much of that was really bloat! I feel smaller than I was actually. Either way, here's my larger than life tummy....

AH! I now judge how much bigger I've gotten by the feel of my bellybutton. Ha! It's getting flatter every day. I would also just like to say, to all the pregnancy books that claim "You should be feeling fabulous right now..." LA DEE FRICKIN DA if you're feeling fabulous right now...because I am not. I'm not gonna say I feel miserable, but I'm gonna be honest - I felt MUCH more fabulous than this many times in my life. Here are some things I've learned this week:

1. Constricting pants (maternity or otherwise) are NOT a good idea.
2. Feeling like I'm going to faint is at least a one-time-a-day occurence.
3. Hot flashes. 'Nuff said.
4. Sitting with my feet not propped or standing for too long makes my ankles swell. Gee, sitting AND standing. What is my other option? Oh yes, lay down.
5. I now grunt when turning over in bed at night.
6. My back problems (that I had before pregnancy) have now been magnified about 100 times. We actually bought a massager to help...and boy did it help!
7. My pregnancy pillow is like having 2 more people in the bed with us, but makes my sleep SO much better. And let's face it, Judd didn't get much of the bed to begin with. He says I'm a bed hog. I say I can't really help what I do in my sleep!
8. I found some Oil of Olay In Shower Body Lotion that you lather on the in the shower and then rinse off...helps my dry skin A LOT.

So there you go. Eight things I learned this week. Could you tell that I was dripping with sarcasm through the majority of that? You couldn't? Try reading it again.

I feel mildly better after that nice rant. :) Leah's wedding is this weekend in Birmingham and I'm SO excited to see her! It's a 5-hour drive if we make zero stops (yeah, riiiiiight) so I'm a little nervous about the long car ride but I'm sure everything will be fine. Her wedding is going to be beautiful and I can't wait to see her considering it's been OVER a year. Mrs. Candy is hand sewing my dress tomorrow under the arms on each side so hopefully the too-big dress will look okay. Now, all I have to worry about is my pasty white legs blinding the audience.