Knitting: A Story of WIPs

I'm still knitting, though not nearly as much as when Joey was small enough to sit there and stare at the ceiling. He is getting into everything which makes knitting while he's awake somewhat difficult. I try and fit some in during my lunch break at work (I have a new full time job now!), but that doesn't always happen. I'd love to stay up and knit after Joey goes down for the night but truth be told, 9 times out of 10, I fall asleep when he does too. Technically, I have 4 WIPs right now, though one is only in the swatching phase. I LOVE the pattern (one I actually paid for) and it requires a lot of yarn (1100yds!), I decided that I really wanted to buy local and support my LYS (Local Yarn Store), especially since one opened up super close by last fall! I stopped there yesterday on my way home just to see what they had. Disappointingly, they didn't have the brand and weight I wanted, but I did get two hanks of a close yarn in a color I liked. I also got new needles because the pattern calls for size 15 :) Got home, swatched, and was not 100% sold on the yarn for the project. It's a lovely yarn, and it's currently being used in a WIP I started this morning, but it's just not right for the big project. So, I ordered the yarn called for in the pattern online and once it gets here we'll see if I like that better.

In the meantime, I was browsing patterns while Joey was napping and came across this:

OMG! So cute! I haven't actually finished knitting anything for Joey (there's a blanket in hibernation that's likely to stay there) and this looked fun and easy. So far, it's been interesting. I'm still on the spiral part of the shell, and achieving that spiral is something new to me, but it's definitely looking like it's going to be a reasonably quick project. Joey really has enough toys, but I hope he likes this one. If he doesn't, I'm totally keeping it!

This is one of my other WIPs. It's on hold while I wait for more yarn. I spent enough on yarn this paycheck, so I'm waiting until the next one (or possibly the one after that, depending on how the Big Project is going). It's much farther along than this picture shows, but it's the only picture I have and I looooove the colors, so I wanted to share. It's going to be an open-front cardigan that I'll probably keep at work for when the AC gets chilly. The sleeves are little cap sleeves and are actually as done as they're going to get in this picture, unless I decided to crochet a border on them or something. There will be 3 buttons in the brown part, then no more all down the front, which means I'll still be able to wear it even when my belly is huge. :)

Let's Compare: 9 weeks vs. 18 weeks

This is my belly at 9 weeks with new baby. Not really a whole lot going on that wasn't there already, as far as size and shape goes. Those are still pre-preggo pants, although I've been using a belly band for a while because it's more comfortable than a belt. At 9 weeks my uterus was still tipped way far back and I wasn't feeling a whole lot of anything. I didn't even get to hear the baby's heart beat until the 16 week checkup because of how far back my uterus was. The midwives said I could have another ultrasound if I wanted some reassurance that the baby was ok (this was prior to the 16 week appointment and hearing it), since there's not a history of miscarriage in my family (and I didn't feel like holding my bladder AGAIN), I was fine with waiting until my elective gender ultrasound. Morning sickness was still in full swing as was the exhaustion, I was counting down the days until Trimester 2 when the symptoms would subside.

Fast forward to today: 18 weeks and 1 day. For the most part I am symptom-free, the only ones that really get me are occasionally I do need a mid-day nap, AND I do not respond well to heat at all. For a while I thought the morning sickness was sticking around well into the second trimester, then I noticed a pattern: I was only getting sick on days I worked, and even then, I was only getting sick after my shower. Eventually I figured out that combining the empty stomach (on days I work breakfast comes after shower) with the humidity and heat of the shower was making me sick. I also realized that my shower gets hotter as time goes on, especially if I'm not paying attention, which exacerbated the situation. Now that I've been keeping an eye on the water temp, I've felt MUCH better in the morning. After the 16 week checkup, I didn't have to go back for another 6 weeks, so around 22 weeks I'll be back. We did finally hear the baby's heartbeat, a nice, steady 150 range. I also went and had the gender ultrasound as a present for Dan for Father's Day. And we're having....

Another BOY!

We're very excited (though I was hoping for a girl this time, I still love my boys) and I'm glad that we don't have to get a whole new wardrobe. I'm not going to believe it 100% until the anatomy scan in a couple weeks (around 20 weeks) because at 16 weeks everything was really smalls. Dan and the tech were quite sure about #2's gender, and I can totally see this being a boy, I'm just not all the way convinced until 20 weeks when everything has had a chance to grow ;)

So this pregnancy I will actually have had the same amount of ultrasounds as last time (unless, God-forbid, something changes and I become high-risk). I had one at 10 weeks, one at 16 (earlier than the first elective u/s last time), one around 20, and I'll get another 3D late one because it's such a good deal and I don't like going the whole second half of the pregnancy without seeing the baby.

My parents finally opened the pool and the water warmed up enough to go swimming! I'm so happy to be able to go swimming all summer long instead of having to wait until getting the OK from my doc like last summer (6 week post partum wait). Joey likes the pool too! We've been swimming twice so far and both times he was in the water for over an hour. I know in the weeks to come I'll be very glad for the near-weightlessness offered by the water and the pressure on my hips increases. I only went swimming once while pregnant with Joey and it was very late in the game, but felt oh-so-good!

And just for fun, here's my 18 week picture from being pregnant with Joey: