Pregnancy Symptoms and Events

I want to remember all of the different events and symptoms throughout the pregnancy so I'm using the blog to keep track..

• I started feeling little flutters around 16 weeks. I started feeling light kicks around 18 weeks. I'm 21 weeks now and I have felt solid kicks for a couple weeks now. I LOVE them.
• I have felt great during second trimester. Nausea is gone. I'm not exhuasted.
• I get horrible leg and foot cramps. At my appt a couple weeks ago the doctor said that it is totally normal. Not every pregnant woman experiences it and they don't know what causes it, but if you experience cramps they will last throughout the entire pregnancy. I think I have scared the crap out of Josh on a few occasions by jumping out of bed during the middle of the night and hobbling around the room muttering, "ow! Ow! OWW!".
• We love the little baby incredibly much. We both think about her all the time. Last Saturday I got up at 6AM because I couldn't sleep. I walked into the bedroom a couple hours later and saw Josh just laying there and staring at the ceiling. I asked him what he was thinking about and he said, "our baby...". Awww, melted my heart!
• I periodically experience lightheadedness and feel faint. It happens after walking or after I am standing for awhile. It's a terrible feeling. Once I lay or sit down for a few minutes, it goes away. The doctor said this too is totally normal because you have 40% more blood in your body and your blood pressure is lower. The worst incident happened yesterday. I was standing outside Starbucks in the skyway, waiting for a woman to show up for a meeting. The lightheadedness came over me and I felt like I was going to faint. For the first time though my vision became very blurry and I had trouble standing. A Target store is right next door so I walked in there, bought a bottle of water, sat down and drank the whole thing. I mustered enough energy to walk back to my office and I was fine the rest of the day.

If you didn't catch it above... we are having a precious baby GIRL!!! We weren't going to find out but we changed our mind about 6 weeks ago. We had the big ultrasound on December 5th. The week before the ultrasound (it was on a Friday) felt like the absolute longest week of my life. We were sooo excited! We would have been completely happy with either gender. We prayed for so long for God to bless us with just the perfect child that was created just for us. We couldn't ask for anything more than that. It's so fun to know it's a girl. She's perfectly healthy! At the ultrasound they measure everything from all of the organs to the parts of the brain to the bones in the arms and legs. After our ultrasound the doctor reviewed all of the measurements as we sat anxiously waiting. After his review he looked up and said, "Well, you can't improve perfection. She's perfectly healthy. You are making my job easy!". Yay!! :) :)

We cannot wait until April. We just want to meet our baby girl Claire!