17 Weeks

Only two more weeks from tomorrow until our big ultrasound! It seems that's all I can think about lately. While my intuition was originally leaning towards the baby being a girl, I'm now starting to second guess myself and am now leaning towards it being a boy. Either way, it's so exciting to know that in just a few more weeks we can finally start referring to the baby by name rather than "it" or "the baby".

I'm still patiently waiting to start feeling any signs of movement. I felt a few strange flutters the other day at work but I have no idea if what I was feeling was really the baby or something else. Aside from that, I'm just extremely tired. Just last night I came home from work and fell asleep on the couch off and on for the rest of the night. Mike is back on first shift again as of this week and won't be going back to second shift until sometime around the end of September. Unfortunately, that just means I keep falling asleep on him each evening leaving him to do most of the housework. Poor guy.

According to Baby Center this week, our baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone, and the umbilical cord — the lifeline to the placenta — is growing stronger and thicker. Our baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and is now around 5 inches long from head to bottom. The baby can move its joints and sweat glands are starting to develop.