23 Weeks (and Mark's Birthday!)

Yesterday was 23 weeks and also Mark's birthday! We had a pretty uneventful actual birthday dinner given it was a weekday, but I did make one of his favorite dinners (breakfast at night, with french toast, eggs and potatoes) and a tasty angel food cake. We went out to dinner over the weekend and then went to a concert at the Embarcadero in downtown SD, it was a pretty fabulous time. We saw Dennis Deyoung (styx lead singer) singing in front of the San Diego orchestra... they even finished up the last song, Come Sail Away, with fireworks over the bay, pretty fabulous!

Other than Mark's birthday... this week has been good so far! Mark and I met with a few birth doulas since we are really hoping for as natural of a birth experience as we can in a hospital. We met an awesome doula who actually lives pretty much next door to us and is also a Bradley Method teacher. We're excited to take her classes starting in October and hopefully meet some other local couples! We also made some progress on Mango's room, he has nice blue walls now and his crib has been assembled. We also have his changing table, but haven't put that one together yet. Pretty exciting to see everything slowly coming together! Speaking of coming together, my belly is not hiding from anyone anymore! Yesterday I got told that I had a "pretty belly" by a stranger and also am pretty sure I heard a man tell his wife to "watch out for the watermelon" as he walked by me and tugged her to his side of the sidewalk... not sure what to think of that remark. Here's my belly photo for 23 weeks:


Not much to report about Mango this week, still enjoying my 2nd trimester... just getting ready for baby as much as we can before I get too big to be as active. :-) Here are his 23 week "stats": Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With his sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that he's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound , you may be able to see him squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in his lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing him for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze him when he hears them outside the womb. It seems like this weeks fruit is smaller than last week, but I guess we're back to weight now, not length... so Mango is now the size of a (in case you can't tell, that's a papaya):