Here we are…baby and I, at 22 weeks. The baby is about 11 inches long, and weighs about a pound. I like to think he/she weighs more than one of several pounds I have gained (maybe coming up on 15 lbs total now?), but that is not the case. But he/she will be plumping up a bunch in the weeks ahead.

Our baby gender reveal party is this weekend! It is crazy to think that when I give next week’s update I will not be saying “the baby…” I will be saying “he…” or “she…”

I have been asked several times if I have an idea of what we are having. It seems crazy to me, but I don’t. When we were pregnant with Josiah, we decided not to find out the gender of the baby until he was born. But I knew that I was carrying a boy pretty much the whole time. Not sure how I knew…intuition I guess…but it was more than just an inkling, I would have been absolutely shocked if he had come out a girl.

Before we knew we were pregnant, I would have told you that I’d be having another boy. A similar sort of intuition (but this time more of an inkling)…I just felt like I would be the mother of two boys before ever having a girl. But then I got pregnant and I kept throwing up and had the hardest time figuring out anything that I could eat. If you were following the blog then, you probably remember…I was feeling kinda low and kept writing depressing posts. I feel like this pregnancy hit me a lot harder than my first…and the difference got me thinking it was a girl. So I am stumped.

And O so excited to bite into my cupcake on Saturday!

On a different note, I love this part of pregnancy. Besides the fact that I am sleeping a bit more than usual, I feel almost entirely normal health and energy-wise. The baby is moving quite a bit and kicking and the feeling is so wonderfully surreal…tangible evidence of the life that is growing inside of me. And I think my baby bump is beautiful…it is big enough that people can look at me and know for sure that I am pregnant, not just pudgy. But my ankles haven’t swollen yet, my feet aren’t huge, I don’t think my butt is noticeably larger, and I don’t think my face has gotten rounder yet. All of these things are coming, I am sure. And they will all mean that the day I meet my baby is drawing ever nearer.

But in the meantime I am relishing this beautiful part of pregnancy.

Because a mom’s heart grows with her belly. Because having a kid multiplies your capacity to love by at least two. And isn’t it just crazy cool that there is LIFE is growing within me?