20 Weeks Pregnancy Update - HALF WAY!

Taken just before heading to the hospital for the big 20 week scan and gender reveal :)

Today I am 20 weeks and 3 days and Baby GIRL is as big as a banana! Actually she is almost one pound! I kept holding up bananas to my stomach all weekend because I just couldn't get over it, haha. It is pretty surreal that we are half way done with this pregnancy! I hit 20 weeks on Saturday and couldn't have had a better weekend. My parents were in town for my Dad's mission reunion, and getting to spend time with them was a total treat. It is the first time they have seen me since I have been pregnant, and they were pretty excited to see my belly! They both got emotional seeing me, they have been wanting me to have kids for awhile, especially my Dad. Easter Sunday my Dad and I decided to decorate some eggs, one for a boy, and one for a girl, to use for a gender reveal. We thought eggs would be appropriate seeing it was Easter and everything! We had a lot of fun hollowing out the eggs and filling them with pink or blue glitter. We cracked them open and took a few shots. My Dad kept saying we only needed to make the girl egg because he was SO convinced I was having a girl. It was really funny how much he was going on about it the whole weekend and it turned out he was right on the money ;) haha

For the ultrasound my sister and parents were able to be there. At one point I thought about how my parents had been to a similar appointment back in the day for me, and now here I was, sharing this moment with them and my husband. It was really exciting to see the baby in full detail, the brain, the heart, heck even her bladder was cute! I actually said that during the scan, "Trevor, who knew a bladder could be cute?!" haha We were all loving it, and my Dad who is such a tech guy was asking all these questions about the measurements, and what we were looking at. I am so happy he was there because I gained so much more information throughout the experience that I wouldn't have otherwise. He knew all these random, cool things to ask that I would have never even known to ask about. I think the best part was hearing over and over again, "perfect, perfect, perfect." She was perfect across the board, and measuring exactly to her due date. *sight of relief!*

At one point during the scan you could easily see her bum and little legs pop up. It was a perfect shot and before the technician even said anything I knew it was a girl, because, well, there was nothing between those legs! haha When she said what a great shot that was, and that it was definitely a girl, Trevor's face was priceless. He was in total shock. Trevor was SO convinced it was a boy! Haha I wish I had a picture of his reaction! To be honest even I was in shock, I didn't have a feeling either way but I guess with Trevor going on and on about boy so much I was anticipating it to be a boy. Then again I think what it really came down to was finally knowing in general. For so long it has been "the baby" "it" and now it has more of an identity, a girl, a daughter! It was honestly like finding out that I was pregnant all over again. We are pretty excited and still a little dumbfounded about it all. It was such a cool experience and something I will never forget.

Not a great quality shot, but the lights were off and it was dark in the room so it will have to do. My Dad snapped this shot just after the ultrasound while waiting for the doctor. I am sad because amongst all the excitement I forgot to get a picture of all of us outside of the hospital... oh well. We have the memories!

After the ultrasound Trevor headed back to work, and my Dad got ready for the road trip back to San Diego. The rest of us ladies - baby included in that ;) spent the rest of the day running errands and shopping. All day I kept repeating the same thing... "a girl!" It took all day to wrap my head around it. We stopped by the GAP and got a cute little girl's shirt that said, "Love my Daddy" on it. I normally find that stuff cheesy and I am not into it at all, but I wanted to get something for Trevor to make him smile that night from his little girl. I also did some much needed bra shopping and holy crud was that an experience! I will go into more detail about that in next week's update but let me just say, I went from not even a full A to a D in the last few months! YIKES. We did a ton of shopping, stopped by my most current craving these days, Rita's, to get a Mango, Vanilla, Gelati :) and wore ourselves out completely! Well, almost completely, later that night my mom and I went to go see the new Cinderella movie! It was one I knew I wanted to see in the theater, but that Trevor would never want to go to, so my mom waited to see it until we could together when she was here.

When I was a little girl I was obsessed with the movie Cinderella, I wanted to be her. If anyone called me Alycia, I would say, "My name is Inderella!" I even went as far as filling plastic sandwich bags with water and trying to close them on my feet so I could have my own "glass slippers." haha The movie did not disappoint! I love love loved it and I couldn't help but think about my future daughter the whole time. I loved the theme throughout the movie because I couldn't agree more with the message of being kind. It is unfortunately something that seems so easy for people not to be, especially now with social media and people feeling like they can say anything that pops into their head because they are behind a screen. "Be Courageous and Be Kind" A great way to live life! And can we talk about the imagery and beautiful clothes, my goodness it was amazing! As beautiful and magical as her blue dress was, I died with her wedding dress! DIED. I love how they kept to the details of the original Disney movie, and their take on her wedding dress was just phenomenal - I want it! haha

Anyways, it was a great day spent just the "girls" and after the movie we came home and all watched the ultrasound DVD they gave us to have. How cool is that? We stopped at our favorite parts and gushed again about how cool seeing this brand new life was. There were two parts that really stood out to me. She got the view on her little feet and they looked as if they were walking across the screen, it was the coolest thing ever! I was dying! I was am so happy to have that on video to watch over again! Also, on one part she stretched her above her head and turned around. You could see her whole spine stretch, and you could tell she was trying to get comfy. It was pretty surreal seeing this little human, acting like a human! haha That may sound dumb but I could have stared at her for hours. She was being a little stinker with her arms and hands up in her face the entire time so we couldn't get a great profile shot, and every time we would catch her face she would whip her head away from us, haha. It was pretty funny. I love that I can call her a she now, and we can really start planning for this baby girl :) This update was longer than normal, seeing I wanted to make sure I don't forget anything about this day! I will go back to the traditional questions next week!

Oh and one last thing to add to this novel, I can not THANK YOU all enough for the outpouring of love we received yesterday across social media, texts, and phone calls! Some of you I know, some of you I don't, but I consider it a gift that you are apart of my journey. This online community has been an amazing blessing in my life, in ways I would have never imagined possible! This shared human experience is a beautiful thing, and I can't thank you enough for allowing me glimpses into your lives, and for caring about mine.