week 16 - avocado!

At week 16, our Hazelnut is the size of an avocado. He measures ~4.5 inches in length, and weighs ~3.5 ounces!

My belly has really popped, and I’ve gained 6 lbs! My bump is pretty small first thing in the morning, but progressively gets larger throughout the day (food/digestion and all the fun that comes with food/digestion).

On Friday, I received my FIRST pregnancy comment (sans my prompting). A woman who I had just met asked how far along I was. I was shocked because a) no one has ever commented without me first mentioning the pregnancy, and b) MY motto is to never EVER ask a woman if she’s pregnant no matter HOW obvious it is (cuz you just never know)… so I was surprised that someone asked ME! Anyhoo, I stared at this woman blankly for a few moments because I was quickly debating how I should respond. You see, Lowell had specifically requested that I deny being pregnant if anyone ever commented on my belly or asked me if I was expecting (you know, just to make the person feel really awkward and dumb for a moment). I thought ‘I could make Lowell really happy right now. After all, it IS appropriately April Fool’s Day. Oh, but I just met this woman and I’m going to be giving therapy to her son and seeing her regularly. But what about Lowell’s wishes? No it would just be TOO MEAN!’

I did respond appropriately this time (much to Lowell’s chagrin). Next time, Lowell…. next time (maybe).

Given my belly size, I’m kind of surprised that people aren’t grabbing my belly. When I see a pregnant lady, my initial reaction is always to stroke her belly (until I realized that not everybody likes that… so now I ask). But for the record, I now consider my belly open territory, so touch away (in a gentle and non-creepy way)!

There are so many amazing things happening developmentally with our Hazelnut every week, but apparently this week the tiny bones in his ears are forming so he can pick up our voices! Now when Lowell's away and I'm lonely, I can have lengthy conversations with both Kumeu AND our unborn child.

Now let’s talk avocados…. we LOVE avocados. We are an avocado-eatin-family! When we lived in NZ, our local produce stand sold them for CHEAP, so we developed a delicious sandwich that we ate regularly (read: daily). We call it ‘The Best Sandwich in the World” or “the NZ Sammy” or “the Kiwi Sandwich” (not to be confused with a kiwi FRUIT sandwich which hopefully doesn’t even exist).
Assembly instructions:
Fry an egg, cut up some avocado and tomato, slice some cheese, and throw it all between two slices of toast. Optional: add a layer of bacon. DEELISH!

And that's all for week 16!