almost 22 weeks along...and counting

mom's coming as i write. her plane gets in around 5pm. as you may guess, i'm rather excited about seeing her, since i thought that i wouldn't until la bebé comes. and speaking of that, we are having a girl, although most of you reading this already know that. she's very healthy and active, which i know firsthand as her muscles get stronger and she kicks harder. Gladys Herdman hits too hard. :)
we got to keep 7 or so pictures from the ultrasound last week...5X7's, too, and pretty nice quality. at one point during the hour-long ultrasound, she crossed her arms in front of her, as if to say, all right already, peeps, go away!! it was pretty funny. i was shocked that it's a girl, b/c i was absolutely convinced it was a boy. but a girl is lovely!! and i'm excited for her to come and wear seafoam green cute stuff! also, braden won me a baby kermit baby beanie-ish thing, and i'll give it to her when she's born. cuteness! or maybe i'll wait until she's a little older so kermit doesn't die a slobbery death. we'll see.

so i think i had some braxton hicks contractions yesterday, which was mildly disconcerting, since at first all i could think of was, this is exactly how Gina described labor to me!! but then they went away. when i read up on the subject, it seems that they can be felt as early as the 20th week, and dehydration and heavy exercise, including lifting, can contribute to having them. so there you go...i've had some strenuous days lately, because of shopping after thanksgiving, errands and especially trying to get the house cleaner for mom's coming. it's amazing how fast the house gets dirty if you don't have the energy to clean some each day. grr.

also, speaking of dehydration, we had an impromptu trip to the ER on Thanksgiving around 7pm, since i was having increasing abdominal pain that radiated downward. i had felt it the night before, but it wasn't as bad then, and it was really bothering me on Thanksgiving, to the point where i started to worry about the baby. i told braden and called mom to see what she thought, and she said to go to the ER just in case. it was one of those things where i probably wouldn't go in if it were just me, but i wanted to make sure that the baby was okay. so we were there for about 3 hours, and at the end, they said, um, well, we don't know what's causing the pain, but you're a little dehydrated, so drink lots of water, mmbye. um, thanks. well, we did get to listen to the baby moving around, since the nurse strapped this thing around me to listen to the baby's heartbeat. haha, she's so active that every time the nurse would get a heartbeat, it would fade away almost immediately b/c she kept moving. she's perfect for the ellis baseball team! :)
so anyway, i'm trying to drink more water, but i've never been much of a water drinker, and it's near impossible for me to drink as much as they're telling me to. so i just do the best i can.