17 weeks 1 day

Yesterday, Sean and I went into Christmas decorating mode. We hung lights outside, decorated the mantle and Christmas tree. This was our first Christmas in the house. It was wonderful to begin a tradition together. It had me thinking of December 2010. What a different experience next year we will be. We will be doing all this with our little baby who at that point may be 7 months old. That morning Sean felt the baby move around a bit. I notice my pregnant belly the most in the morning. I think it is because my stomach is empty and I have been laying down for a while. I noticed that the right side of my stomach was dramatically protruding while the left was flat...obviously baby was cuddling up. Sean put his hand on my belly while I applied some pressure to where baby was and sure enough, he/she moved a bit. At least enough for Sean to notice some movement.

I have been keeping up with my pregnancy at babycenter.com. Each week I check in to find out the size and weight of the baby. When I got into work this morning I read the following piece of information, " Starting to feel a bit off balance? As your belly grows, your center of gravity changes, so you may begin to occasionally feel a little unsteady on your feet." My reaction was, "um, ya' think?!" This morning while walking into work I fell not once but TWICE! Other than the experience being horribly embarrassing, I wasn't injured and managed to avoid falling on my belly.

I keep a ruler at my desk and have marked the size of the baby along the way to put it in perspective for me. I am looking back at the ruler when it was marked 5 weeks and 6 weeks and my little one was under an inch in length (about the size of an apple seed or sweet pea). In the 17th week the baby will measure approximately 5 inches from head to bottom (about as long as an onion). INCREDIBLE!

Our doctor's appointment went well. We didn't' have an ultrasound...that will occur next week. Thanksgiving was the day following our doctor's appointment. It was a bittersweet Thanksgiving. My Aunt Rose Mary who has been battling Stage IV non-smokers lung, bone and brain cancer was hospitalized. It appeared that her situation was very grave and the cancer had apparently spread. Our family made the decision that San Antonio Thanksgiving would be cancelled and that we would travel to Houston to visit Aunt Rose Mary. It was wonderful seeing her, and despite her condition she was in good spirits, still cracking jokes and "entertaining" the family. She was even concerned that there wasn't enough food to accomodate the number of guests she was receiving. We enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving meal at Aunt Rose Mary's home. Before we returned to San Antonio I had a moment to breifly talk with her. I told her that if she wasn't well enough for Thanksgiving then we had to bring the Thanksgiving love to her. She replied by saying, "I wish that I could have had a baby shower for you and that I could be there for Christmas." I replied by thanking her and emphasized that she had to take care of herself and her health and that we would be okay. The following day, Friday, Aunt Rose Mary passed away. At her rosary I mentioned that for those that knew Aunt Rose Mary she enjoyed celebrating the joyous occasions in our family births, marriages, birthdays, and graduations. She was the first to volunteer to host baby and bridal showers. She even rescheduled her chemotherapy to attend my wedding. She fought the best fight she could until the end and displayed extraordinary faith and courage even in her last days.