16 Weeks

We now have an avacado sized babe!  16 weeks is bringing about change in my mid-section, finally, at least according to me!  Yesterday at my home church here in Minneapolis, as we spread the news to more people, they laughed at me when I said I was 16 weeks along.  You CA friends who know me well and see me often may see the difference, though!

Last week I was awoken in the middle of the night by crazy pain in my abdomen.  Of course this made me very nervous and I got up to use the bathroom.  No issues though - nothing out of the ordinary.  I really had to go to the bathroom so I wonder if I just had waited too long or maybe my uterus was doing some stretching...who knows...it did make me nervous for a few minutes but then the pain subsided and I have been fine.  I do think it marked the beginning of a new growth spurt, though, as evidenced by my need to pull out the "Belly Band" today!  My sister was kind enough to bring me several pairs of her old maternity jeans, however, the are still a bit big and saggy in certain areas.  My regular jeans have been getting increasingly tighter and today as I pulled them on, there was no way I was going to get them buttoned.  Luckily, a few weeks ago, Andrew's mom and I were at the mall and I stopped in Motherhood Maternity to pick up one of these nifty belly bands.  Its great - my pants have been unzipped and unbuttoned all day and never once did I feel like they were going to fall off.  I think I will have to invest in more of these.

My sweet nephews were in town last week and we had a great time with them.  Hunter, on a few occasions, found the 1st ultrasound picture at my parents house and would bring it over to my tummy and say "Baby Mars is in Aunt Bec's tummy."  (He thinks the ultrasound looks like a picture of the planet Mars and thus refers to the baby in this way, as well!)  It was great to spend some time with them as well as the rest of our family.  

Now, we are down to days.  I have my first baby shower coming up on Wednesday evening!  Andrew's mom has a great group of friends and they were so anxious to get one together before we left town!  We will hit to the road on Thursday morning and head back west.  Our plan is to arrive back in Pasadena on Saturday afternoon.  I must admit, I am not looking forward to the drive back at all!  Airplanes were invented for a reason!  However, we are really looking forward to getting home and seeing our CA family again - we have missed you all!  We look forward to hearing about your summer adventures and hanging out soon.  As always, it will be very sad to leave MN, but we do so with the hope of returning at least once this fall.  So, MN - we will enjoy every moment we have with you and CA - we look forward to seeing you soon!  P.S. I hope to add flickr pictures soon, check for those, too...http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrightventures/