Baby, Is That You?

Feeling a baby moving around in your belly… it’s such a strange feeling. Strange and completely amazing at the same time. I love it. I absolutely, whole heartedly love it. I’ve been feeling baby move around for over a month now. At first it started almost like a little tickle from the inside. Many moms call the feeling “flutters”. You know the feeling when you’re on a roller coaster or drive over the top of a hill too fast and your stomach flips? That’s how I’d describe what I felt for a few weeks. Only it wasn’t in my stomach, it was in the area below my belly button. The movements became a daily occurrence, and baby began to move around more in response to certain things. For example, he seems to love it when I drink orange juice. I try to have at least a glass every morning to give me and baby an instant shot of our fruit servings for the day. And it always gets him going. It feels like he’s dancing in there. Another drink he seems to like is water, plainly enough. I can drink a Coke and feel nothing, and then drink a few sips of water and he starts moving. And the food he seems to react to the most is salad. But not just any salad – it has to be a salad from my favorite pizza place. It gets him going every time. A salad from anywhere else doesn’t quite have the same effect.

Back on topic… about a week ago, the movements started getting much stronger. They felt more coordinated, if that makes sense. I told Kevin that it felt like any day, he should be able to start feeling the baby move too. I felt so bad that he hadn’t felt the baby move yet. Here I was, feeling Bun moving every single day and Kevin just had to sit and watch. Actually, he had to sit and listen. I’d always say “Bun’s on the move!” or “That really got him going”, not realizing that it was probably breaking Kevin’s heart that he couldn’t share in the feeling. I would get so excited that he was moving around in there that I’d just blurt it out. Don’t get me wrong – Kevin was excited too, but he wanted to be able to feel what I was talking about. So rewind to a week ago… I started feeling much stronger movements. It was like baby was working on his jab. Whatever it was, it was getting much more powerful than the little “flutters” from the weeks before. So I started walking around with my hands glued to my stomach. I wanted to feel it from the outside, and I wanted to be sure that’s what it really was before I got Kevin’s hopes up.

It happened Friday night. After 3 days of constant hands-on-belly, I was laying in bed watching tv (yes I know, my Friday nights are too exciting for most to handle…). My hands were on my belly by chance (my belly’s getting to the size where it’s hard to put my hands anywhere BUT the belly when I’m laying down..). And there was a little jab on the lower right side of my gut. Instinctively, I shrieked. Then there were 2 more little jabs in the exact same place. I shrieked again. I had been waiting on this moment for months, and there I sat shrieking at my stomach like a maniac once it finally happened. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but then again, how do you really know what to expect of something kicking from inside of you? Ponder that for a second…

I yelled for Kevin to “Get in the bedroom RIGHT NOW” – something that probably gave him the impression that I suddenly felt the need for nookie because he was there in a flash, kicking his shoes off as he came through the door. Much to his disappointment, there I sat in bed, fully clothed, holding my side, jaw dropped, and tears in my eyes (sidenote: My reaction to just about ANYTHING lately is to tear up). “I felt him – give me your hand.” We must’ve sat there for 10 minutes with both of our hands covering every square inch of my belly, waiting for any kind of movement. And there was nothing. Kevin was disappointed. And I felt awful.

…Fast forward a couple of hours…

We’re both in bed watching tv. I could feel baby moving on the inside again, so I nonchalantly moved Kevin’s hand from holding my hand to resting on my belly just over the spot where I could feel baby moving around. After a few minutes, I felt a really big thump. I jerked my head towards Kevin to see if he felt it. There he sat, smiling, looking at my stomach from the corner of his eye. “Was that him?” All I could do was smile and tear up.