A Diary of Pregnancy.9

20 weeks:

~ Feeling the baby move is the best thing ever. It's just sublimely unbelievable--yes, you do in fact have a small person growing inside of you, and he's chillin' out, doing somersaults (although I'm still a bit worried that he's bored in there). (Plus, it's always a relief to know he's alive, and that I haven't accidentally killed him by laying on my back in my sleep--the internet is a really worrisome place sometimes.) It's nice to feel him growing and getting bigger and stronger even in his movements.

It's sounds cliche (well, it is cliche), but whenever he kicks (well, whenever I'm not in the middle of teaching a class and can reflect on what's happening), I'm just blown away by the miracle of life. It's really amazing; it makes me want to stop everything I'm doing and pat my belly. Seriously, I get annoyed with anything that stops me from paying complete attention to the kicks and backflips.

Every time I tell Francisco that the little one is active, he says, "I probably still can't feel him yet, right?" But we still try--I fetch Francisco and he sits there with his hand on my belly, feeling my the beats of my heart through my veins, and maybe occasionally a little flicker of movement.

~ Got dizzy and warm and felt like I was going to pass out in the Salvation Army thrift store (after waiting in a long, long) line. Thankfully the woman checking me out was kind and brought me a cup of water. Also, got lots of cheap maternity clothes!

21 1/2 weeks:

~ The ultrasound: That was not as great as I anticipated: First of all, I haven't been allowed to lay on my back since 14 or 15 weeks. For the ultrasound, they lay you flat on your back for 45 minutes. That just doesn't seem right. Also: turns out laying on my back is not that comfortable anymore. About 20 minutes in I started to get hot and dizzy and had to have a break for a snack (the baby was laying on a big vein and cutting off my circulation).

It was amazingly depersonalized--it's as if a robot was giving me the ultrasound and couldn't tell me anything until the doctor looks at the pictures and video and gives a report to my midwife. It wasn't that bad, but close.

We couldn't see most of the ultrasound as the tech measured and photographed. But she did give us a little tour, as she put it. She showed us the distinguishing male characteristic from several angles. She showed us the baby's arm moving--he was making and then relaxing a fist. You could even see his little fingers. She showed us the baby open and close his mouth like a little robotic fish (they basically drink and pee amniotic fluid all the time). We could see the baby's heart beating in his chest. He looked relatively like a normal baby. (We learned the next week that everything looks "unremarkable," as they put it, which is code for good, I think.) It's funny, but not being able to see it but feeling it kick all the time, I wasn't at all sure that it would look like other peoples' babies. But he seemed to have limbs, a head, a heart, all the basic things. (I think I'm an expect-extreme-situations kind of person.)

I was disappointed that it was a boy. I mean, I knew that it was most likely going to be a boy, but I was hoping against hope that it would be a little girl that I could dress up in frilly dresses with smocking. Alas.

~ Adding insult to injury to a degree unbearable, as Anne of Green Gables says, one of my co-workers gave me a bag of little girl clothes (before we knew the sex, but I didn't pick it up until after we knew). Sigh.

~ Now that Francisco knows it's a boy, he's obsessed with me eating plenty of meat!

~ I enjoy eating sugar or (a little!) caffeine and then feeling the baby jump right after. That's his best trick right now. Although sometimes when I rub my belly, he kicks me in response. Also a decent trick.

~ Today Francisco held his tablet, which was playing classical music, up to my belly (while grinning). He's beginning our son's musical education early.