The Belly has Begun.

I've been noticing my growing belly for over a month now, but it feels like this week everyone else is starting to notice it too. I've had more comments in the past seven days than before, including lots of belly-cuddling (which I wouldn't be excited about if they were strangers, but they're all people I'm close with so it's been fun). Still haven't felt anything yet, though there was a little flutter earlier today that I should probably chalk up to my imagination.

This week I also made a pregnancy pillow. I'd been eyeing the Bump Nest pillows but they're SO expensive. So last week I made my own, using a photo on the website along with the dimensions, and fudging it a bit here and there. The first iteration didn't work; it wasn't wide enough. So at 9:30 on Monday night (proof that the second trimester has brought back my energy) I made another, adding six inches to the width of the tube. It's much better now, even though it needs to be stuffed a little bit more. It's comfortable, and it's keeping me from rolling on my back in my sleep, which is the most important point. I'm getting used to the whole sleeping on one side all night thing too - I normally turn several times, starting on the left side and ending on my back, so it was hurting my lower hip to have the pressure of being underneath me all night. But it's getting easier. If anyone's interested in making a similar pillow, I can tell you how I did it and give you some measurements, just let me know.

We aren't much closer on the name front than we were a few weeks ago (not that I posted about it - I think I haven't mentioned it here yet). We've had a girl's name picked out for a couple of years now, but boy names are so much harder to think of (for us). I have a list of maybe 20 names, some of which are growing on me and some of which get worse the more I look at them. I'm not that worried about choosing something right away, it'll just be nice to have a starting point if we find out it's a boy.

Tomorrow I'm headed up to the outlets to look at some maternity clothes with my friend who's 10 days further along than me. I'm excited; it's fun to have someone so close, timing-wise, to share chatter with about all this stuff that only other pregnant people think is fun to talk about.