Moving

Well, it's true. She's moving, a lot! The books say by 20 weeks, if not sooner, a women should start being able to feel her baby move. Well, that wasn't the case for me, but that didn't stop people from asking me if I had felt her move or telling me how early they had felt their babies move. I started to get a little worried around the 22nd week when I still hadn't felt her move. Come to find out I have an anterior placenta so as the baby would kick she would kick the placenta and the movement would not register past that cushion.

And then her kicks became stronger and her body bigger that even with an anterior placenta I could feel her, Mark too. I loved it when Mark was able to feel her move for the first time. his eyes lit up. Somehow it made things seem even more real. What an incredible feeling! It is crazy to me to think that here in a few days or a few weeks she will be kicking on the outside instead of the inside.

Our baby is very possessive of "her stomach space". For example, when I rest the ipad on my stomach to watch a video clip for my Sunday School class or an episode of Alias she will kick at the ipad. One day she kicked it five times in a row! As the ipad jumped off my stomach I got the point-"get this thing off of me!"

One night I was cuddling Mark in bed and my stomach was pressed up against his back when all of the sudden my little sleeping baby hauled off and firmly kicked Mark in the back. How I wished he had been awake because I'm sure he could have felt it. It sure made me laugh.

Another day I was getting my blood drawn for preeclampsia labs when our baby just started rolling around and kicking. I usually probably would have kept it to myself, but for some reason commented out loud to the lab technician "I don't think she likes this". To which she responded in awe, "that was your baby? I thought that was you repositioning yourself. I caught that movement out of the corner of my eye. I wish I would have seen it straight on", she said. "I don't have any children of my own and that was one of the neatest things I have seen." The next day when I returned to the lab to turn in my 24 hour urine test (yep, fun stuff) she remembered my name and birthday. I guess you could say we left an impression on her.

She is always awake during Sacrament meeting for some reason and right during or shortly after meals. I usually don't feel her at night so hopefully she is in the habit of sleeping through the night. Sometimes bath time makes her wild too. One day I layer in the bath tub and watched with fascination as my belly moved and jumped around. Crazy stuff!

One day about a month ago Mark asked me if I had felt the baby move that day and I, all of the sudden, panicked. I had been so busy that I couldn't recall the baby moving at all in the last 3 days let alone that day. Needless to say I couldn't sleep that night. 'Come on baby, move, please let me know you're okay.' The next morning as Mark said the morning prayer he knew this was still on my mind so he prayed I would be able to feel her move. Boy did I ever that day! I think she moved non-stop for the rest of the day. It made me smile all day. I decided when you are too busy to feel your baby move you are too busy. My 14+ hour days came to an end shortly after that as my GED night class finished up. Phew.

As excited as I am to be able to soon be able to hold this baby in my arms I think part of me will miss the comforting movements of our baby. She loves to kick me right under my ribs on the right side to let me know she's awake for the day "good morning baby" I say as I smile and rub her feet.