13 Week Bumpdate: The Fat Phase

*I forgot I had already scheduled a post for this morning, but then wrote this one and got excited about posting it. Ha!  So sorry for double posts today.*

The Bump:

As you can see, I am currently in the "fat phase," where I don't look pregnant at all, but like I just gained a few pounds.  And I totally love how my jeans are digging into my stomach in my 13 week picture.  It may be time to purchase a Bella Band:

A friend of mine told me she could tell I was "pushing my stomach out" in my 12 week picture.  But I promise you, this is just me, standing comfortably.  Obviously, you can tell by the way my stomach is shaped that it is mostly bloat.  But compare it to my 4 week picture...something is definitely happening in there, whether it is baby, or bloat, or just things moving and shifting in my abdomen.  I am barely above 5' tall, and barely above 110 lbs, so I feel like every change that happens is going to be very visible.  You know, kind of like when I eat a big cheeseburger. I've never been able to hide that from the outside either.

In fact, I know that a lot of that bump is "bloat," so I actually sucked my stomach in in this next picture, trying to see if I had any belly left:

And look...it still protrudes a little bit.  Sorry for the rambling...just had to defend the bump! Even if it is 100% bloat, it's bloat because of my baby (trust me, weird stuff happens with your entire body, including your stomach and digestive system when you're pregnant.  I'll just leave it at that. Ha! Can I get an amen from all the women who have been pregnant, past or present?!) I'm trying to keep accurate track of the "belly progress" so I'm being careful not to push out.   

Milestones:

For baby, he or she is now forming vocal folds!  Very exciting news for a future speech-language pathologist like myself!  Also, it's looking a lot less like a peanut, and a lot more like a human baby since its head is no longer the same size as its body (it's about 1/3 the size of the body now).

The only new milestone for me is that I thought I was feeling my uterus in the mornings before I've eaten anything or used to restroom.  Every morning when I lay in bed, I can feel a really firm ball very, very low in my abdomen.  The thing is, no amount of Googling is giving me a straight answer.  I don't know if my uterus is anterior (toward the front) to my bladder, or vice versa.  If the uterus is anterior to the baldder, then I'm feeling it in the mornings, being pushed out by my full bladder.  If the bladder is anterior to the uterus, then my uterus may just be pushing my full bladder out further than normal, and what I'm feeling is simply my bladder.  I'm thinking it's probably the latter.  any anatomy experts out there who can answer this question?  Clearly, my knowledge of anatomy does not go past the systems of speech and neurology.

Symptoms:

• The return of morning sickness: nausea, vomiting, the works.  I was very sick on Saturday, but have been a little better since, so I'm hoping it was just one last hurrah.
• Fatigue
• Major mood swings.  My temper has definitely been worse than normal this week. I'm blaming it partly on hormones, and mostly on the stress I'm feeling as I return to classes this week.  Sorry, husband.

Cravings:

• White chicken chili, until the nausea returned

Aversions:

• Right now, just about everything sounds disgusting
• Especially chocolate milk. I won't go into details, but I may never drink chocolate milk again...

Fun Stuff:

• My sister and brother-in-law wanted to do something special for the baby.  I mentioned in passing last week that I loved the look of older, wooden high chairs.  (Even thought I know it will be a long time before we need a high chair).  Anyway, they went out, found one at an antique store, are adding adorable fabric to it, and Andrew the engineer is going to try to fix it so it's up to safety codes.  The baby is spoiled by Aunt Julie and Uncle Dewey already! (I'm using Julie's nickname for Andrew because I think it's cute.  I don't know if that's what he actually wants the baby to call him). 

• One of the things I've always looked forward to when we have kids is planning Disney World trips!  I already told Luke that I want to take a big trip there when the baby is 3-4 years old.  And I find myself daydreaming about it more than I probably should.

And that about covers week 13.  Onto week 14, and hopefully another remission period for this morning sickness!