16 Weeks 2 Days

I wanted to post my belly pic. I don't really see much of a difference when I compare it with my pic from closer to 12 weeks, but I feel the difference. I started to feel this little one move last Wednesday. It's the best feeling, and it was my favorite part of my pregnancy with Jack, and I'm pretty sure it will be one of my favorites with this one as well. I usually only feel it when I'm lying really still, but occassionally it will be moving when I stand up at work, and that is the strangest feeling. I don't remember having it with Jack, but it just feels really heavy and weird really low. It usually stops moving after I've been moving for a minute, probably because it's being sloshed around in there and maybe it makes the baby fall back asleep.

Jack has started talking to the belly, or singing to it. The other night he put his mouth right against my lower belly and sang his ABC's, and I could feel the baby moving around. It was cute. Jack continues to remind me when baby names come up that he doesn't like one of our boy names (he actually really "hates" it), and reminds me of what variation of the girl name he'd want to call the baby. For a 4 year old, he sure is opinionated. I guess he comes by that honestly.

We have narrowed the baby names down. If it is a girl it will be Kate Elise (Jack wants to call her Katie which I told him was fine). If it is a boy, the only option we had that we could agree on but weren't over the moon (like we were with the name Jack) about was Charlie. NOT Charles, but Charlie. I really love that name, but I have conflicting feelings about it because Charlie sounds like a kid's name, but what about when he's an adult. I do not like the name Charles really. I figure there was Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Sheen (which makes me like the name a little less), etc., so it could work. Then a friend overseas in Australia told me that they have kids with the official name Charlie over there, and it's not thought of as a kiddie name. That made me feel a little better. My mom, Archie, Jack and I were in the car a week or so ago, and Jack brought up the name Joey. I like Joey, it's not a bad name. I don't mind the name Joseph, so that would be the official name, but we'd probably call him Joey. Except that Archie doesn't like Joey, so he said he'd call him Joe which I'm not a big fan of. I figure by the time the child can make the decision on what he wants to be called by friends, whatever name we call him by will stick with the family. Archie would like his official name (Archel- pronounced Arch-elle) to be the boy's middle name either way. I don't like it with Charlie, but with Joseph it sounds fine. BTW, Kate will be her official name, not Katherine. Katherine just sounds too formal to me. Kate and Jack are both classic names, and I love them both!

I'm still dealing with nausea and some occassional vomiting, but I've begun to eat every couple of hours (like 2 hours), and I will eat some crackers if I wake up to go to the bathroom just for fear of waking up really nauseous (which does occassionally happen). That coupled up with the zofran seems to be working pretty well. I'm still getting the IV fluids 3 times a week.

My next ultrasound and OB appointment are on August 25th-only 15 more days until we hopefully know what this baby's gender is!!! I'm hoping that by that time, I'll have this nausea under control and maybe we can stop with the IV fluids.

I just continue to pray that this sweet baby is healthy and looks great on my next ultrasound. We'll get to see it's little heart, and hopefully make sure things look normal. I see things that get missed on prenatal ultrasounds be present at birth when I'm at work and know that just because it looks normal doesn't mean it necessaily is, but if it doesn't detect anything major, I will have faith that this baby will be ok.

As a random side question, do any of you watch Big Brother on CBS? I am a total addict!