As usual, I should have made some notes for myself because trying to recall the information to do an update on weeks 17 and 18 is proving to be a little difficult.

I spent most of week 17 trying to just hydrate. That is still my mission. Just keep drinking. I’ve been sleeping much better since I got over the dehydration and leg cramps.

The crying phase seems to have set in. Everything makes me cry. For anyone who knows me you might be thinking, what’s new? But this is seriously all the time. It takes nothing to send me straight to bawling. In fact this morning I woke up with an overwhelming urge to cry, and while it never happened, I felt that way for four hours. Just a lump in my throat and the wrong moment was going to send me off the deep.

We spent half of each week on our “babymoon” vacation to Boca Raton. It was a much needed and overdue break for both of us, and I’m going to fill you in on all the details in a separate post. As far as the pregnancy is concerned, I managed just fine. I’m glad it was an easy vacation, meaning a lot of laying around the beach, because I don’t think I would have had the energy to keep up with a fast-paced trip. I did well on both flights, despite the nightmare of traveling the day before and the day of Thanksgiving. My back is in dire need of catching up, and it’s make me nervous about my even longer flights to/from LA in two weeks. I just couldn’t ever find a comfortable position and I was up several times to go to the restroom.

I got to feel the baby move a few more times during weeks 17 and 18. Still just fleeting little flutters that catch me off guard. It tends to be either late at night or very early morning. There was one moment following dinner on our trip though that was completely out of no where. We were walking around some shops when my knees buckled because I swear the monster was trying to escape out the left side of my abdomen. I think it was a combination of slight pain and a lot of surprise.

The day after Thanksgiving I woke to find that I was spotting a tad. I’d had a lot of cramping this day, too, so I was of course fairly concerned. But the spotting didn’t seem to last and neither did the cramping.

I have my monthly appointment with the OB on Monday to kick-off week 19. While we were told it would have to be week 20, I’m HOPING he’ll let us have the sonogram this next week. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! Before I was adamant about not finding out the gender of the monster. However, I’m a little OCD when it comes to planning things and being organized and I just can’t wrap my brain around not planning for a specific gender. So, we anxiously await to find out if this is a he-monster or a she-monster.