Whoooaaahhhhhh, We're Half-way There!!!!!!!

   We are half way! I am now 21 weeks. What is that you say? I have been half-way for a week already? Not quite. I hate the idea that 20 weeks if half way, because this is based on the idea of the 40 week "due date" which is ridiculous. The average women goes into labor at 41 weeks and 1 day. The baby isn't past due or "post dates" until after the 42nd week (which is still not a big deal, and don't even get me started on the inaccuracy of due dates). So why did doctors arbitrarily decide that at 40 weeks time is up? I have no idea. But it's not for me. So I am celebrating my halfway point at the more accurate 21 weeks. In commemoration of this event, here are some "highlights" from the past few months.

- The names are now decided. If it is a boy, his name will be Perrin Allen Buckman. If it is a girl, Leila June Buckman. If you are currently pregnant and due before me  and steal our names...I will find you.

- We felt the first movement at about 19 1/2 weeks. I had just gotten out of the bath and felt a really strong thump. I put my hand on my belly and could feel the next one from the outside. Joey and came in and got to feel two more good ones, which we were pretty excited about. We figured there would be a few weeks between me feeling it on the inside and anyone being able to feel it from the outside. Now I can feel him/her wiggle around and kick pretty regularly.

- We got registered for all of our baby stuff which was exciting but also kind of depressing. There is so much junk out there. Who needs half of that crap? Maybe we are just crazy minimalist hippies, but we don't have a lot of space and I don't want to fill our house up with plastic crap we'll never use. But we got all of the essentials and were even able to set up a registry on Amazon so we could include some of our crunchy stuff (yay for placenta encapsulation supplies!).

- I have gained a solid 16 pounds thus far. Joey likes to joke that the baby will be 10 lbs. with a 15 inch head. I don't find this funny.

- I still have one pair of jeans that I can actually button! Other than that, belly bands and yoga pants are life savers. I see the maternity section looming in my near future.

- There are a lot of topics I would like to write about, but this semester is going a little fast, so I might do a post soon with nothing but links to cool resources and posts written by others. Keep an eye out.

- We have nick-named the baby Raptor. This started as a joke. People would ask if we knew what it was, referring to the sex. So under my breath, I would say to Joey "Velociraptor!" which I'm pretty sure I saw on an Ecard somewhere. So we started referring to our unborn child as the velociraptor. But that is a mouth full, so now it's just Raptor. We're creative like that.

- We discovered pretty early on that I have a gestational gluten sensitivity. I was having frequent, persistent migraines throughout the first trimester. The midwife suggested going off of gluten, but it was right before Christmas so.....that wasn't going to happen. However, after having a headache every day of my Christmas break, I decided to go cold turkey with the wheat. And wow, I hardly ever get a bad headache now. And apparently that is not super uncommon, because our birth class instructor is having the same problem.

- Speaking of child birth classes, we started our Bradley classes a few weeks ago. If you aren't familiar with the Bradly method, you should check it out. It is one of the most thorough birthing classes available. Much more useful than those weekend hospital orientations classes.

Other than all that, there is isn't much to report on. It has been a pretty smooth ride. A little heart burn here and there, but other than that and the giant belly, I wouldn't know I was pregnant. Let's hope the second half goes just as smoothly!