17 weeks!

Yes, I know I just posted a 16 week picture when I am, in fact, 17 weeks pregnant right now, but I've been sick, and busy. :o)

At 17 weeks the baby is about 5 inches long from crown to rump, and would be about 9 inches if s/he could stretch out. I think that would be mighty uncomfortable, so thankfully for me, baby can't. S/he weighs about 5 oz. (think turnip) and no longer looks quite as alien as the eyes have moved from the sides of the head to the front. Light sensitivity is functioning, and baby can hear my heartbeat, although probably not much else right now.

I can feel flutters and light jabs at least a couple times a day, and Joe was delighted to feel a kick on Saturday morning. We were supposed to have a prenatal appointment last week, but our midwife had a birth, so we're rescheduled for this week.

We're still undecided on middle names, and have mutually agreed to just table that discussion for a while. I've presently got two dilemmas I'm puzzling. The first is deciding exactly where we're going to put the birth pool, since we're in much more confined quarters than our last two homebirths. It's going to have to go upstairs, since I want to have a bed on the same level, but there is no way it will fit in our room. Shortly after we moved in, we gave the boys the biggest bedroom since they spend more time the their room than we do. It also made sense considering they have way more stuff in their space than us. Our room isn't the smallest bedroom, but we have a king size sleigh bed in it, so unless we put the pool on the bed, it ain't gonna happen. I'm thinking we'll probably have to put it in the boys room (providing we get all the toys put away in early labor) but then we arrive at the other brain boggle I have, and that is where the kids are going to be during the birth.

At our other two births, we were downstairs in the lower level with a bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom, and the kids were upstairs in the main living space with my mom. Here, we don't have that option. The kids have already expressed a desire to see the baby born, which I'm fine with for the most part. The concern is whether having them here will distract Joe and take him away from the role he has for helping me birth. I've no doubt when I'm in "the zone" I wouldn't care if a marching band came through the room, but Joe is always very involved in helping me through labor, and we're not sure how the kids being present would affect his focus. I realize we have plenty of time to figure this stuff out, but I think if the kids are going to be here we need to start preparing them now.

How about this? Everyone pray I go into labor at like 9pm, and have the baby an hour or so later while they're all sleeping. After a 29 hour birth and a 27 hour birth, a one hour birth might be a nice change! :o)