Half Way There

Today marks twenty weeks of pregnancy, or five months, which means twenty-ish more weeks and (Lord-willing) little Emma will be here! In celebration, and for those who keep asking for it, here's a picture of me at twenty weeks.

Just because I'm cool, here are twenty differences and similarities between this pregnancy and the first (probably not to be read by the faint of heart... or the faint of stomach):
1. Alice & Emma - both girls.
2. Alice made me throw up three times. Emma only made me dry heave once.
3. With Alice I gained weight fairly steadily from the start. With Emma, I still haven't gained much.
4. With Alice, I was hungry ALL the time once I hit the second trimester mark. With Emma... not so much, but food is finally starting to sound good again... some times.
5. Alice was super active starting at 15 weeks, which is about the earliest the mom can start to "feel" baby move. Emma waited until last week to remind her mommy that she's in there.
6. Once Alice started moving it took her daddy a long time to feel her move. Last night Emma kicked her daddy's hand after only a few seconds.
7. With Alice I wanted to eat fruit, vegetables and bagel bites ALL the time. With Emma I want to eat doughnuts all the time. Alice often got that which she desired. Emma has not been satisfied much at all.
8. With Alice I could NOT handle being near, let alone touching, raw meat of any kind. With Emma it hasn't been much of a problem.
9. With Alice I worked full-time until I went into labor. With Emma I'll work full-time until I go into labor, but won't get paid for it :-)
10. Both Alice & Emma have managed to suck all the iron from my body at an early point in pregnancy, putting me on iron supplements. Really fun.
11. With Alice I didn't exercise much until the end of the second trimester. With Emma, going on walks (before the heat wave) has been a regular occurrence.
12. With Alice I'm sure I had some "nesting" symptoms at some point, but with Emma it's been nearly constant. I'm a cleaning and organizing maniac.
13. With Alice there was a good amount of fear (of the unknown, of going back to work, etc.) that sort of overshadowed the excitement at times. With Emma I've been pretty excited (after the initial shock) to have another little one.
14. I thought Alice was a girl from day one and was right. I thought Emma was a boy from day one and was (apparently) wrong.
15. With Alice we didn't want to find out the gender, but changed our minds. With Emma we did want to find out. Actually, I think my wonderful husband would have agreed with whatever I wanted to do.
16. With Alice her name was kept a secret (with very few exceptions) until she was born. With Emma... well, duh. Obviously we've already shared her name.
17. With Alice we weren't completely sure of the name until a few weeks before she came. With Emma we don't have a middle name yet... Still have time...
18. With both Alice & Emma, the quest to find a girl name was made more purposeful after the gender was confirmed. We already have two boy names. It would be funny/ironic if the Lord gave us all girls!
19. With Alice I didn't have a preference of girl or boy. With Emma, I really wanted a girl, but was excited when we thought she was a boy. Then was MORE excited when we found out our doctor was wrong!
20. Thankfully, with both girls I didn't have any problems getting pregnant. With Emma we found that I can, apparently, get pregnant VERY easily!

Okay, that turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. So, if you read that whole thing, your reward is a really cute picture of Alice. And if you didn't read that whole thing, you can still enjoy this really cute picture of Alice.