Week 17

What's new this week in Pregnancyville? Well...

I had a bit of a scare last week when I took my customary Sunday afternoon nap on the couch (I am so thankful for that tradition!); and when I woke up, for some reason, I felt like I had not been feeling much movement and I quickly grew concerned about it. I don't know if I had a dream that something had happened to the baby or what exactly prompted it, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. You know those dreams/feelings that are so gripping that, after you wake up, you have to remind yourself over and over that it's not real? That's how it was. On the one hand, my head was telling me that at 16 and 1/2 weeks, it's not at all uncommon to go a significant length of time without feeling movement; in fact, some women aren't feeling anything at all by then! But my heart--oh, my heart--instantly seized up with worry. Jeff tried to listen with this old-fashioned fetal stethoscope (there's an official name for that, but I don't remember what it is) that my dad had given us to try to sell on eBay :) -- but Jeff could barely hear MY heartbeat with it, much less the baby's! I was thinking maybe I should call my midwives...maybe I would have to go in to their office the next day...maybe I was going to be hit with tragedy again.

Then I calmed down (a good IM chat with my friend Julie helped!) and decided to just take some time and lie down and try to focus on the baby's movements. Well, I don't know about you, but as soon as I started doing that, I was OVER-analyzing everything. "Was that a movement? I don't know. Maybe that was? No, I don't think so...Hey, baby, would you please give me a good kick so I could know you're alive in there???"

In the end, after a day or two, I gradually became convinced that I was indeed feeling real movements and not merely tricking myself into thinking I was feeling them. Last night as I laid in bed, I found it amusing that less than a week before, I had been so scared about lack of movement...when last night, I was feeling plenty! (The movements last night made me think of someone gently kneading my internal muscles like bread dough. It's always hard to describe early fetal movements, in my opinion; but that's the image that came to my mind.) Again, I'm reminded of the fragility of life...and of the need for much faith and gratitude every step of the way.

Now I'm 17 and 1/2 weeks along, and already I'm beginning to feel some discomfort sleeping and some back pain when I wake up in the morning. I'm considering getting one of those "egg crate" foam mattress pads to sleep on because I've heard they can help. Any moms out there have any opinion about those pads or any other good ideas for dealing with this problem???

I'm discovering that the night is the time when I think the most about the baby. Days are busy, of course, with Josiah and David and everything else in life. But at night, when I lie down and try to go to sleep, I feel like it's my time with the baby, and it's really special. Jeff is invariably already asleep by this point because he has the uncanny ability to decide to go to sleep and then literally be asleep in less than 30 seconds (he inherits it from his mom)! On rare occasions, he will mention that he's having a hard time going to sleep; and it will usually be less than 5 minutes that he's been lying there trying to sleep--yeah, that's some really bad insomnia. :) Oh, well, that characteristic is just one of the many things that make Jeff unique and that make me love him so fiercely!

Anyway, during the past few nights as I've laid in bed, I've been thinking a lot about whether this baby is a boy or a girl. (I almost wrote "whether this baby will be a boy or a girl," but then I realized that's definitely already been decided!) For a little while, I'll try to wrap my brain around the idea of it being a boy, and I'll imagine what it would be like to have another son. And then I'll switch and roll the idea of a girl around in my head to see how that feels. It's a fun mental exercise which always leaves me full of longing for the real knowledge of whether it's a son or a daughter. I can hardly wait to know what we're having--to imagine it so much more clearly--to start putting the appropriate baby clothes in the armoire--to be able to call it by name, etc. Although, if it's a boy, he's going to have to wait a while to hear his name because at this point, we're in a huge quagmire about boy names! It surely is a good thing we've got plenty of time because right now, I don't know how in the world we're going to resolve this one!!! :)