BellyWatch2 | 25 Weeks

This pregnancy hasn't been nearly as kind to me as the first one. For one, there are still 15 weeks still to go, I've already easily surpassed the amount of weight that I gained during the entire first pregnancy. It seems that I can barely see my feet without peeking over my stomach. In fact, this is the heaviest I've ever been. And the cravings haven't helped. I haven't had a love affair with chocolate milk like this since it came with my lunch tray back in 3rd grade. And anyone who knows me knows that ordinarily I don't even like chocolate. And I wish I could say it was just the chocolate milk. But it's been pretty much everything and anything with a reasonable amount of sugar in it. Cereal. Juice. Soda. Raisins. Anything to get my fix!

But other than that, the pregnancy has been good to me. As for my wife (gotcha) she hasn't had the cravings that I've had, but she has shared my weight gain. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to publish this tidbit (ducking the hurling shoe from across the room), but she mentioned a couple of days ago that she's over 20 pounds heavier in this stage of the pregnancy than she was the first time around. She has also suffered her fair share of heartburn over the past week or so, another symptom that wasn't there the first go-round. As for the baby itself, the flutters have finally turned into kicks and jabs, and V and I now find ourselves occasionally just sitting around marveling at the baby's movements. It's actually about the same timeframe that Justin started his slugfest in her tummy, but it's not nearly the intensity that she experienced back then.

Lastly, at 13 1/2 inches from head to heels and about a pound and a half in weight, the baby has pretty much outgrown the fruit and vegetable analogies (though they still go on for weeks on babycenter.com). V has also taken to calling the baby "she" despite us not knowing the sex... and as I write this, between the heartburn and the markedly softer kicks and jabs, I'm just now starting to wonder if she is not on to something with her gender bias. (Hmmmm.... ) But either way, the bottom line for now is still the same: we've gotta get moving on coming up with some names!!! At any given moment, we usually have a boy and a girl name and that we are willing to go with "if the baby was born right now"... but the names themselves change every 3 weeks. Oh... and don't let the name be the same as one of V's current students: "We can't name her that! I have a student with that name who doesn't even come to class anymore. And the boy in my class with that name was very disrespectful last week!"... good grief. We've only got 3 months to go. And while that seemed like a lifetime when she was pregnant with Justin, I've gotta feeling that April twentysomething will here before the blink of an eye.

As for the names, whether boy or girl, I say we go with Jerome Jr. and call it a day :o)