Limbo (Wk 15: PREGNANCY)

August 9, 2005

With fifteen weeks behind me, I'm desperate with anticipation to feel my baby move. They say you can feel it as soon as sixteen weeks, though occasionally mothers have reported feeling movement sooner. As the typical over-achiever, I'm determined to join the early club.

Of course, they also say most first-time mother mistake those first fetal movements for gas or a grumbling stomach, not recognizing that it's really fetal movement sometimes until twenty weeks. Are they kidding? Any first-time mom who's done as much reading as I have is on the constant look out for "a fluttering, bubbling sensation" in her stomach. I'm more likely to mistake gas for fetal movement than the other way around.

So I've taken to lying down and poking my belly to wake the baby (when my infant turns out to be a neurotic and fussy sleeper, we'll know why) [Update: So this is how it happened!] Then I lie still, concentrating every ounce of energy on my stomach. For the first time in my life, I've been able to feel my heart beat without placing a hand over it. Impressive, but not what I was going for.

Now I've learned that a baby can sense light and will even move away from it. Next experiment: a flashlight.

Are You Still in There?

Aside from the emotional rush of feeling my baby move, I think my obsession lies in wanting daily, low-tech affirmation that the little bean is, well, alive and kicking. I'm beginning to understand why people rent dopplars.

While my first trimester fears have mostly abated, I just don't feel very pregnant this week. I'm in limbo between those wretched months of queasiness and fatigue and those glorious moments of a true big belly. I feel like my old, non-pregnant self with tighter waistbands.

I'm now counting the days, the hours, until my next prenatal appointment. On Monday, at sixteen weeks, I'll hear the heartbeat again. I wonder if my doctor knows how much my life revolves around those visits? It's like having a date with my baby.

If my baby would just let me feel her move, we could have a date every day.

Note to self: I will re-read this entry four months from now to feel grateful when my little percussionist keeps me up all night.