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Holy crap, I only have 14 weeks left! Less than 100 days. Shit!! I am feeling better overall because Colorado is no longer in the middle of an arctic cold front that prevents me from being outside for more than 10 minutes unless I want frostbite. Literally. I guess it was actually less than two minutes for exposed skin the other day. Don't get me wrong, I love not having to work because it is too freaken cold to heat our ancient building and kids cannot wait for buses, but it also means you have to stay inside. I get really depressed without the sun, and vitamin D isn't really the answer. So this weeks high 50s and Colorado's plentiful sunlight makes me a much happier person.

I am definitely getting HUGE and that is hard. Growing so fast is hard on your body--your bones, muscles, ligaments--really everything, are just not prepared for it. My belly hurts all the time, and the round ligament pain is sort of ridiculous. I also eat all of the time and am gaining the amount of weight I am supposed to in a month EVERY WEEK. However, I only have 14 weeks left, so I can do anything for three months.In baby news, he is finally a new fruit and is the size of an eggplant.
Baby's soaking up your antibodies, getting her immune system ready for life outside the womb. Eyes are forming, and she'll soon be practicing the blink...perfect for batting those freshly grown lashes. Your baby weighs about 1 1/2 pounds and has undergone a growth spurt in the past few weeks. From weeks twenty to twenty-eight, he almost doubles in height and now would be about a foot tall if he could stand. This week marks a major milestone in your baby's hearing and sight. Your baby's hearing system (cochlea and peripheral sensory end organs), which began fine development during week eighteen, is now completely formed, and over the next few weeks, he'll become increasingly sensitive to sound. In about a month, you'll feel him jump if he hears a sudden loud noise. Sound passes easily into your uterus, which helps her ears develop. His eyes are almost fully formed. Did you know that all babies have blue eyes in the womb, no matter what their genetic inheritance is? A baby's eyes don't get their final color until a few months after they are born. The air sacs of the lungs, called alveoli, will be developed by the end of this week and will begin to secrete a substance called surfactant that keeps the lung tissue from sticking together.

In mama news:
Don't panic if your uterus suddenly starts tightening and relaxing -- Braxton Hicks contractions often begin around this time. They're simply your body's way of practicing and preparing for labor. (If the contractions are regular or particularly painful, call your doc just to be sure it's not the real thing.) Sleeping is definitely getting uncomfortable. Try sleeping on your left side. Your baby has to battle with your backbone when you're lying on your back, and sleeping on your back will also position your uterus over a major artery, cutting off blood flow. Between now and the next three weeks, you may be tested for gestational diabetes with a glucose tolerance test. This test requires you to fast for twelve hours and then drink a glucose-rich liquid usually in the form of a syrupy orange-flavored drink. After an hour, a blood sample is taken. If you do have gestational diabetes, you'll be advised to adopt a low-carbohydrate diet. Gestational diabetes is a temporary condition, which goes away after the baby is born.