22 weeks already?

I am so awful at keeping up with a blog sometimes, but I am determined to start posting weekly now that I'm over halfway done with this pregnancy.  It's hard for me to get the energy to write a blog when I'm supposed to be writing papers and a thesis right now, but I need the break and I want to have the memories!

Lots of stuff has happened since my last post, I am sure I will leave something out.  I LOVE the new midwives practice I go to, and we got some really cool pictures at our NT scan: 

 Profile with hand on the right

 Hand with fingers

 Baby is facing screen, you can see an arm on the left, belly, and legs on the right (knees together, ankles crossed)

 The whole baby

 The tech even threw in this awesome 3D picture for free - touchdown!

















We also had our anatomy scan three weeks ago and the doctor told us that we're having a GIRL!  Even I was able to tell, she wasn't shy about it, as you can see:

We have also gotten great results from the first trimester screen, the NT scan, and the quad screen, so my doctor is confident in saying that there are no chromosomal abnormalities and no obvious issues - her organs all look great, etc.  So that's awesome!  For the past three weeks, Jeff and I have mostly been working from home and writing.  Today Jeff went back to work, though he may take some time off later, and I'm going back on Monday.  Which means I should really be writing instead of blogging right now, oops.

Our other huge news is that after getting several job offers, Jeff finally decided on a post-doc in Seattle.  His thesis defense date is tentatively set for July 27th (eek! so soon!) and we will be moving very soon after that - he has to start his new job by August 15th.  I've had two nibbles on job offers in Seattle; Jeff's future boss, Toshi, sent out my resume, and the two people who contacted me seemed very interested.  Both jobs would be awesome and I really liked both of the people, but it's been a while since I heard anything and I'm getting a bit nervous.  I plan to take some time to apply for more Seattle jobs today, though I applied for several before and had no luck.  :-/

Other exciting pregnancy stuff: I feel the baby move really frequently now, and Jeff can sometimes feel her too.  Last night we were snuggling on the couch with our bellies touching, and he even felt her kick his stomach!  Very awesome.  The look on his face when he feels her move is priceless, and gets me all teary.
Speaking of, I am a crying machine lately because of all these hormones - generally it's happy/sappy tears, thankfully.  Other not-so-awesome pregnancy symptoms include some truly toxic gas, stinky feet and armpits, pretty severe round ligament pain (RLP) which lasts for an hour or more, difficulty breathing, and very uncomfortable Braxton-Hicks contractions.  HowEVER, it's all totally worth it, and despite having a lot of miserable things going on, I am generally really happy and I actually love being pregnant (now that the horrible, terrible, awful nausea and fatigue from the first trimester have come and gone, that is).

We are going to visit Jeff's family in NJ for Father's Day, and I am pretty sure there is a surprise shower in the works.  A ton of stuff was bought off our registry (thanks Geri!) even though it was really just a wish list.  It will be fun moving it all to Seattle...

I am actually going to make a second post just for my bump pictures thus far, since this one is already so long!