We were so glad to have a more relaxed week this week. It felt a little more relaxed since Nick took a day off of work to help his parents work on their house, and even though he was gone all day and we didn't see him, it helped knowing he was more "available".  But I didn't have to make 900+ bars of soap this week, only about half of that, since every soap shelf is full, which helped me to have time to focus on getting stores restocked and get caught up in other areas of the soap business. Anyways, here's how our pregnancy went this week:

How Far Along: Recapping week 22 (Picture taken at 22w 6d) (Sorry for the low quality picture! We didn't get a picture all week until it was time to go to bed, so, at least you get to see how the belly is this week!)

How I'm Feeling This Week: Good overall. I haven't been sleeping the best, since our 3yr. old has been coming in to see me at night lately, and I don't get any sleep until I put him back into his own bed. The broken sleep pattern makes me feel more tired in the mornings, than when I can sleep all night without interruptions.

Braxton Hicks Contractions: Every day. While I don't relish having an irritable uterus for this pregnancy, it does signal when I need to slow down and take a break.

Aversions: None this week. Yay!

Pregnancy Symptoms:
•bleeding gums when I brush
•vivid dreams
•dark hair on my belly
•brittle nails
•darkened areola

Doctor/Midwife Appointment: We saw our midwife this week! I love these monthly visits, as it is much more personal than our visits with our OB. My fundal height (measuring the baby bump from pubic bone to the top of the uterus) is right on with where I am in the pregnancy, which is great.
The baby's heartbeat was 144 BPM, very rythmic and strong. During the time our midwife was using her fetoscope (a device to hear the heartbeat manually), and also when she used the doppler to listen to the heartbeat, the baby was trying his/her best to beat up the midwife! Wherever she put her instruments, the baby would kick it until she moved it somewhere else, and then he/she would begin kicking again. This baby is going to come out swinging! I guess he/she is getting prepared to meet his/her brothers. Haha!

17P: We started the 17P injections two weeks ago, so this was the third one I've received. This week's injection hurt a lot for some reason. Usually I don't feel anything until the muscle gets tender a few hours after receiving the injection, but this one was making my arm hurt before I even left the building. But, I'm still glad for these progesterone shots, even if I'm uncomfortable for a few days. While the progesterone won't help with the frequent contractions, it should be regulating my horomones to help my body keep this baby in longer.

Weight Gain So Far: I'm still doing the calorie counting as it has been helping me gain a healthy amount of weight in this pregnancy, instead of going crazy on food cravings. I'm eating about 2,100 calories each day, and I'm using the My Fitness Pal app. to help me keep track of my eating habits. Since I cook most of our foods from scratch, I like that I can add my own recipes into the app. and it tells me the calories per serving.
If you'd like to see my diet, you can look me up and I'll add you on my friends list. I'm listed as horseopeaceranch.
Right now I'm supposed to add only 300 extra calories to my regular diet each day, which translates to about one banana and a glass of milk. None of this "eating for two" business!

Starting Weight: 119 lbs.
Last Week's Weight: 128 lbs.
Today's Weight: 130 lbs.
Goal Weight Range For This Pregnancy: High: 154 lbs. Low: 144 lbs.

Food Cravings: I wanted some ice cream one day this week (well, let's be honest, I want ice cream EVERY day!:) ),but since I had a lot of sugar in my diet last week, I wanted to make healthier changes to my eating habits this week. So, when I was at the grocery store, I went through the produce aisle and found pineapples that were on sale. The one I chose was perfectly ripe and our boys helped me eat it within an hour of getting home. It was so good, and it made me doubly glad that I chose the pineapple over ice cream, plus our boys thoroughly enjoyed it too.

Regular or Maternity Clothes: I'm getting down to only a few pairs of pants that don't give me contractions. Which means I needed to find more comfortable clothing to wear this week. The pregnancy jeans I have are all a size medium and too big for me yet. I wanted to wear a skirt, but I only have one that was long enough for the cooler temperatures we'd been experiencing this week, and it's too long for me to wear if I'm working on our business, Horse 'O Peace Ranch, as it causes my feet to get caught up in it and risks me falling, so I couldn't wear it either. So, I went onto Swap.com, a website that has women's and children's clothing that are gently used, and I found 2 pairs of name brand maternity jeans for only $13 with free shipping! Two pairs of jeans for only $13? Yes please! So, I'm waiting for those to arrive in the mail. They've been shipped, so they should arrive any day now.

Starting to Show: Yes, I think it's pretty obvious now.

Boy or Girl: Nick knows, but I don't. Don't ask me how this is working, but believe it or not, it is. Nick's been talking about a girl baby and a boy baby to keep me guessing. The hardest part is not being able to talk together about this baby being specifically a he or a she. But, I'm comfortable with not knowing until the end. 

Baby Movement: As I mentioned above, this baby isn't afraid of someone touching my belly, and he/she will start kicking them! This baby is very aggressive alreadly, and it makes us wonder what sort of tenacious tendencies we will see in his/her personality once they are here.

Size of Baby: He/she weighs almost 1 pound now, and about 11" long, or about the size of a spaghetti squash. 

What I Did to Prepare for Baby's Arrival: Nothing this week. We have plenty of time, right?

Pregnancy Thoughts this Week: This week I thought about having an all boy family. We already have so much fun with the boys we have, that if this baby is a boy too, it would be really great. Plus, all boys means some things will be easier - room sharing for all of them, passing clothes down, seeing them grow up to be best of friends and worst of enemies, and doing things with them that we already love to do. To be honest, while I'd really like to have a girl, I've never been able to imagine what having a daughter would mean. I've not dreamed of having someone to shop with, or hair to braid, or playing house (just like Mommy!), or dolls, or even having pink things in our house. If this baby is a girl, it will be a pretty big surprise to all of us!