23 Weeks!

A quick update, since there's not much that has changed:

I'm 23 weeks and still feeling great. No heartburn, leg cramps, headaches, back soreness, or any of that other stuff that I keep reading about on various pregnancy websites. My belly is slowly growing and I'm looking pregnant for real now! Still, no strangers have asked if I'm pregnant. Maybe I'm still at that "is she pregnant or is she fat" stage...who knows? I'm just about back to my pre-pregnancy weight and I have a feeling there's no slowing down now, especially with all this yummy holiday food that's always around. The baby is kicking harder and harder, although he has his active days and his lazy days, which worried me at first when I didn't feel him kick constantly for a couple days. I'm still quite comfortable when I sleep, I just don't usually sleep through the night anymore because I usually have to get up to pee a couple times. It could be a lot worse though, and luckily I seem to still have a lot of energy throughout the day even if I don't sleep well at night.

We've been having fun buying clothes for the little guy. I haven't gotten anything that's not on sale yet, so I don't feel too badly. I've literally never seen Jon shop online for anything, but the other day we were lying in bed and he went onto The Children's Place website and started picking things out and actually ordered them! I was shocked haha. Other than clothes, we haven't gotten anything else really. Since we live with my parents and don't have our own home with a nursery to set up, I haven't felt like there's any reason to buy anything else besides clothes yet. I'm feeling so relaxed and stress-free about the whole thing, actually. I'm excited about baby boy getting here, and I love that I don't feel like we have to have everything together first. I'm pretty sure it will all work out just fine as long as he gets here safely. That's all that matters.

I'm also feeling really calm about the actual labor and delivery part. I am reading a hypnobirthing book (no, it's not about being hypnotized while giving birth) and even though some parts are really weird and a little too new-agey for me, it really does have a lot of great points. For example, women hear their whole lives about how birth is the most horribly excruciating pain you'll ever feel, and how it's so hard and terrible. Which it very well may be so many women. But the book points out that if you go into something expecting a certain outcome, that outcome is a lot more likely to happen. It's the power of suggestion. It's kind of like how we can sometimes get a scratch or something, and not notice it, but then suddenly feel pain once our eyes see it. It doesn't hurt until we know it's there. Our minds are a powerful thing, and when we fear birth because of the pain associated with it, our bodies respond to that fear and the perception of pain greatly increases. That's not to say that it won't be painful - I'm sure it will be. But I can learn relaxation techniques and ways to work with my body and let it do what it was made to do, which can help advance labor instead of slow it down or stall it, which is what stress and anxiety can often do.