Or, in other words, I am leaving the “honeymoon” phase and am now entering the “beached whale” stage of pregnancy.
Last Friday, I experienced the worst mixture of feelings I’ve yet felt in this pregnancy. It happened as I was standing at the Bass Pro feeding tank, the smile I had while watching my toddler point at the “big fish” still plastered on my face as I tried to remember the last time I had felt the baby move.
The resulting feelings were an awfully haunting mixture of panic and guilt, as I realized I hadn’t felt him move since earlier that morning, and it was now a full 12 hours later. I tried to soothe myself with the realization that we’d had an active morning that stretched into early afternoon. “But,” said my mind, “But! There were those 3 hours during naptime when you sat on the couch with your feet up and felt nary an internal punch or kick.
I tried not to let the panic or the guilt consume me as I made my way to my husband’s second home at the fly shop. Thankfully, he was calm under pressure, and suggested getting something sweet to drink and taking it easy for a bit. (In my mind I wondered how on earth he knew the textbook response. . . ) While we were en route to Sonic, the baby sent a telegram: SOS style taps and jabs to say “Hey! I’m in here! Hello!!!! (And, yes, something sweet to drink would be nice!)”
Phew! Relief!
Until a week ago, my body had procured for its retirement years a wide, flat piece of real estate between the bottom of my navel and the top of my pelvis. This bump has become somewhat of an interloper in that space. The retirement property is no longer flat now that my belly has ballooned downward and staked its claim. The baby’s finally decided to emerge from his hammock at the very very bottom of my uterus (under formerly flat real estate) and is staking out areas northward. I suppose now that he’s almost 15 inches long and weighs about 2.5 pounds, it’s time to find some more comfortable digs. I really don’t understand pregnant bellies and the babies in them. . .
Also? I’m really freaking tired! Like, REALLY! No matter how much I sleep, I’m tired. So tired. Each and every night I’m waking 3 or 4 times to go to the bathroom. And each and every time I find myself fully awake for seemingly no reason and then go “Oh. Bladder.”, I find myself lamenting the REMs I know I should be getting and knowing that somewhere, somehow my body’s keeping score on what it’s sacrificing to gestate this baby.
And then there’s the part where my OB is leaving his practice a month before my due date. Boo!
But mostly, there’s just this buzzy feeling as we enter the homestretch. It could be the shortest trimester of a pregnancy (9 weeks!) or the longest (14 weeks – hiss!), but it’s the one that feels most real, like the realization that “hey! There’s a baby at the end of all this!”. M’s getting so excited, which I think is exciting and kind of funny. Because he has no idea what we’re really in for!
~Nichole
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