The only surprise to come out of yesterday's trip to the doctor was that I had lost weight, despite the huge hunger spike I've had this month. Last week, I was eating enough for three, let alone two. And yet, fully four months pregnant, I'm now two pounds below my official pre-pregnancy weight.

Matt said, "Well, we've found the ultimate diet!"

Heh. I'm starting on my fifth month now. In another four weeks I should be pregnant enough that even people who don't know me will be able to see it. We'll see about weight loss then.

And I have three more doctor's visits scheduled for the next four weeks. One of them is next week, and doesn't really count - I just have to go in and let the vampires have some blood so they can test my thyroid again. (When they told me pregnancy would do weird things to my thyroid levels, they obviously weren't kidding. It's beginning to look like I won't level out until after the kid is born.)

The other two appointments are back-to-back, next month. The first is another generic visit, like yesterday's. A regular every-four-weeks "How ya doing? Baby's heart sounds good. Any complaints, problems or questions?" visit.

The second one, the next day, Matt and I will take three or four hours off in the middle of the day and drive down to Riverside Hospital, where they have an ultrasound machine sensitive enough to peer through my multitudinous layers of fat. I'm already getting excited about that one. By now, the baby should look less like a parasitic space alien and more like a real baby. If it cooperates and moves around enough, we may get to find out its gender.

(I suspect Matt is not really planning on thinking about names any more until after that diagnostic. I can't blame him. Why argue over two names when we could just wait and argue over only one?)

But even more than the ultrasound, I'm looking forward to the weekend. I really could use some extra sleep...

--Liz