Where dat bump at?

I'm just going to lead off with this image, as I'm pretty sure this is what a lot of people are thinking when they look at me right now.

On Friday I hit 18 weeks, and so far reactions have been mixed.  On the one hand, one of my...ahem...rounder friends at work good-naturedly yelled at me last week because I wasn't really showing yet (quote: "I look more pregnant than you do!").  Yet only two days later, a colleague quietly asked M if we were expecting.  Now, to be fair, we were out for drinks and I was nursing a water whilst wearing a very blousy top that had always given me a bit of preggo look even before the advent of Chalupa Batman, but still.  I figure the reason she asked him instead of me was because she was a little concerned that I'd been hitting the donuts too hard and didn't want to offend me just in case.  Either that, or she was aware of this helpful infographic:

Right now, I figure I'm sitting somewhere around level 2 or 3 of this chart.  See for yourselves.

Baby?  Or pizza?

I have to admit, it's a little weird to be almost halfway (!?!) through this pregnancy without really being able to see or feel anything.  This stage of pregnancy is such a tease!  Over the past week or two I've occasionally felt little rumbles that could maybe sorta kinda be CB moving around in there, but my stupid anterior placenta makes it so faint that I can't really be sure.

Also, while my regular pants and belly band are getting pushed pretty close to the limit, I still don't seem to be quite ready for maternity clothes yet.  Especially tops.  Every time I've tried one on, even if I grab a really small size I still look like I'm wearing a potato sack because I'm not filling them out properly.  (Side rant: is it just me, or do they make maternity tops really huge at the neck??  Everything I've tried on seems like it gapes down to my boobs, which I'm sure is great for nursing but not so good for going to work and otherwise associating with humans who don't suck on your breasts regularly.  Or perhaps, as a member of the itty bitty titty committee, I'm just not filling them out properly.)

I'm also still waiting for the fabled "nesting instinct" to start kicking in, because I know the next 20 weeks will pass by in a flash, especially with Christmas holidays thrown in there.  We've done exactly zero preparation so far, which I guess is probably pretty normal, but at some point we'll have to buckle down and focus on turning "that room" (which has held junk for the past three years of our infertility process) into a nursery.  So far though, my couch has had a whole lot more appeal than the paint aisle of Home Depot.

The Absentee Blogger

Sooo...it turns out when I'm not dealing with the daily slings and arrows of infertility, I'm a really boring person.  I keep waiting for there to be something noteworthy for me to write a blog post about, but we're just basically trucking along on an even keel here.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining AT ALL.  And I'm not deliberately avoiding writing or anything, because hopefully you guys know me well enough by now to figure out that if you're not in a good place to read about my pregnancy, there's no hard feelings.  You take care of you first.

That said, here's what's new:

• I seem to have gotten my acid reflux issues under some semblance of control.  My OB put me on twice-daily Zantac, and I've only had one more puking incident after an ill-advised large BBQ rib meal (but DAMN it was worth it).  In general I just find that I have to eat much smaller portion sizes than I'm used to, which means I'm pretty much eating all day long.  There's breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon snack, pre-dinner snack, dinner, and bedtime snack.  I'm literally eating like a hobbit.

• Despite my prolific eating, I still don't have a real "baby bump".  I've put on about 6 pounds (which is on track for almost 16 weeks) and am definitely thicker around the middle, but so far I've been making do with my fat pants and a belly band.  When I finally told my dance classmates last night that I might not be doing the recital with them this year, they seemed pretty surprised that I was almost 4 months along.  Then they told me that, since I'm due in March, I have a whole three months to get back in shape and learn the choreography so I apparently have no excuse for missing the recital in June.

• My sis told my 5 year old niece this weekend that there was a baby growing in auntie's belly.  Hilariously, my niece didn't believe her and immediately insisted on Facetiming me to ask me herself.  She didn't appear too impressed with my answer...I think she sees her days as the one and only child getting my attention coming to an end.

• The name game has begun!  Even though we won't find out the baby's sex until the start of November, M and I have started tossing around a few suggestions.  I thought this would be fun, until I realized that his attention span for this activity is approximately 0.36 seconds before he starts firing out ridiculous shit like "Lando Boba Fett".  Also not helping?  The fact that he just recently finished binge-watching the TV comedy "The League" and now, in homage to the characters on the show, has begun to refer to our gestating fetus as Chalupa Batman.

Even worse...now I'm doing it too.

• I had another OB appointment today and happily, Chalupa Batman's heartbeat was easily found and was thumping away.  I apparently have an anterior placenta (it's on the front of my uterus with the baby behind it), so that can sometimes make finding the heartbeat difficult because it's muffled.  It also will likely mean that I won't feel any kicks or movement until a bit later on, which kind of sucks.  Although I did have a moment other day when I thought I might have felt something...but then figured it could also be gas.  Given the amount of bloating still going on, if we're playing "baby or gas?" then there's a pretty good chance it's just gas.