Half Baked

I'm half way through the pregnancy at 20 weeks now. Things seem to be going well, still! Here's a cool highlight of what's going on in Matt's world:

Your baby has established sleep patterns akin to a newborn now. Most babies even have a favorite sleep position already. Many at this age fall into noticeable cycles of sleep and activity, so you may know before it arrives whether you have a night owl or an early bird.

He loves to move around at night, so it looks like we'll be wide awake for late nighters (I suppose that's good news for our friends). He also seems to already have his favorite sleeping position down based on his ultrasounds - he loves to sleep with his hands on his chest, which I find hilarious since that's how JB sleeps. (The other way JB sleeps is with his arms behind his head... we don't know if Matt's mastered that yet or not.)

Here's the obligatory monthly shot:

Boom, Boom, Pow

I've been lucky enought to be feeling the baby move around since around 16 weeks. When I told my doctor about it, he said I could thank my skinny genes since the baby's movements don't have to push past... well, a lot of fat, basically. (So, "thank you", my Artime genes. Thank you for giving me an awesome mom-bod.) He also said that other people would be able to feel him and see him move quicker than other pregnancies, too. Jason was able to feel Matt move around 18 weeks. We finally started to try to catch him in the act and see if we could actually see the movements (which are usually at night), and we did last night -- it was so cool! It was like he was fist pumping or something. Or maybe elbowing me to change the channel, who knows.

Matt likes to chill out on the left side mainly and occassionally move to the right, but he's pretty consistant. He also typically moves around at night or in the evening when I'm fixated on watching my reality shows. He's a cool little kid and it's fun to watch him "play". He's going to love summers at Piedmont Park, I can already tell. Bring out the Radio Flyer!

"I Do What I WANT!" -South Park

I had two appointments today: one was a regular check-up and the other was at a maternal-fetal medicine place. I asked my OB/GYN to refer me so that I could get insurance to pay for a pre-25-weeks ultrasound. At the MFM office, they would take "official" measurements of his brain/heart/etc. to make sure that he looks as healthy as possible. And so he was. Matt's 8oz and 8 inches long from head to feet. That's ma' boy.

Also, I had my first dose of my kid "doing what he wants" and not doing what *I* want. When the doctor went to take a picture of his face, she wasn't able to because one of his forearms was covering it. So, we tried to shake him up to get him to move his arm. Well, in typical Artime fashion (just like his mama), he decides to be stubborn & hard-headed and proceeds to thrust both arms over his face in an "X" shape. When we tried again to get him to move his arms, Matt decided he was sick of us and simply turned over to show us the back of his head. Thanks, son. But, he's just too darn cute to still not smile when seeing the few shots he gave us!

Matt with his arm over his face:


Still a boy...