33 Weeks

The baby is still gaining about half a pound a week, and she could grow up to another full inch this week.  She is probably somewhere above four pounds.  Now that she has gotten so big, there is less amniotic fluid to cushion the blows, and her kicks and pokes feel a little harder. Antibodies are being passed from me to the baby as she continues to develop her own fetal immune system.  Her skeleton is also continuing to harden.  

After we heard from the doctor that my measurement had jumped so quickly this week, Jeremy pointed out that it made sense, since this past week has been particularly difficult for me in terms of painful stretched skin and muscles that seem ready to give out at any moment.  The quick jump was probably what made it seem pretty bad this week.  The muscles really low on my pelvis (which I never really thought about even existing before) hurt SO BADLY ... when I try to roll over, get out of bed, or do something crazy like WALK.  I feel so stupid, because I see pregnant ladies all the time who are walking along as if they were not in agonizing pain.  Why am I so weak that I can't even do basic things?  So sad.


I read that the baby was supposed to be running out of room and would be moving around less ... not this one.  She is still as active as ever, rolling around, stretching out, poking, and kicking.  One of her favorite new positions is with her head shoved up really high on my far right, under my ribs, while her feet are WAY down at the very bottom on my left side.  And then sometimes she kicks her feet and flails her arms at the same time while in that position.  


She also continues to hiccup a lot.  In fact, she is hiccuping as I type! It is strange how different the hiccups feel when she is in different positions.  Depending on whether she is head-up or head-down, the crazy percussion of the hiccups vibrate in very different places!  My mom said she never felt any of us hiccup, and I feel this one hiccup about three times a day on average.  My friend Jess hiccuped a lot in the womb too, so maybe our little girl will turn out like her! :)

Odds and Ends #2

Other than sharing baby news with people I don't speak with every day, the main reason I started this blog was to record all the little things that I knew I was likely to forget.  Here are a few of the latest ...


1.  The baby has a new morning routine in response to my morning routine.  I always wake up to some serious kicking (maybe she will be a morning person, unlike her mother?), she falls asleep in the shower (I figure it must be a calming feeling or sound for her), and then when I brush my teeth after my shower, she wakes right up and kicks like a maniac while I brush my teeth.  The funny thing is, she is usually very quiet for the rest of the time I get ready (and doesn't start kicking again until I get started with whatever I am doing that day) but she is WIDE awake and kicking for teeth brushing time and then goes back to sleep.  I don't know why, but this cracks me up.


2.  Ever since I was first able to feel her hiccup, she has had the hiccups almost every single day, and sometimes more than once a day.  The other night she had hiccups three times between 9 PM and 1 AM, and yesterday when I was teaching (the first day of the Summer quarter ... bets on whether or not I will make it to the last day of class on August 26th??) she had the hiccups three times during my four-hour class.


3.  One of my students in the class I am teaching on Tuesday nights was also one my students last year.  He came up to my desk to hand something in last night and said, "I predict you will go two weeks past your due date."  Luckily he is someone I know very well and have a good rapport with, because I decided to go with my first instinct, and said, "You can shut your mouth right now, mister.  If you ever say that again, I might punch you.  In the face."  He died laughing.  I, however, got a little hot just thinking about it.


4.  I posted a few days ago that I had been having some spotting and the doctors examined me and also ran some tests (which all came back saying I had no signs of premature labor!  Yay!) and the spotting went away after a few days.  Well, the spotting came back this afternoon, and it was a little closer to the color that they told me to watch out for.  Naturally, I freaked out, but I decided to assess the situation before calling anyone.  I felt no pain or cramping, but I also wasn't feeling the baby move, so I went and laid down on my left side in bed and put my hand on my belly.  Immediately, she started kicking harder and faster than she ever has before, and she then proceeded to move all around my belly and kick every single inch, as if she were saying, "Hey!  I'm alive and fine!!  Feel how strong and energetic I am!  No worries, mom!"


I can't remember if I already posted this or not, but she seems to do this a lot.  Because she is so active, whenever I notice with a shock that she isn't moving and hasn't been for at least a half an hour, all I have to do is think When did I last feel the baby move?!?!? and she will kick on cue.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but it is very reassuring, like she can feel when I am worried and just need to check in on her, and she obliges.  Such a sweet girl! :)


P.S.  Wanna vote for when you think the baby will be born?  Please do so!  I have a new poll at the top right of the page!!

Playing Catch-up

There are a couple of fun things to report.  


First of all, last night, Jeremy got to feel the baby hiccuping!  At first I was scared that he wouldn't be able to feel them at all, because I put his hand right where she was, and he said he didn't feel anything. After I gave him a little more explanation as to what he was feeling for and telling him exactly on his hand where he should feel it, he did!  


THEN, as she was wrapping up her hiccups, she got super feisty and was kicking and thrashing around quite a bit, right where Jeremy's hand was resting.  Normally, whenever I rest my hand on my belly, she will kick right where my hand is, but until very recently, she would not do that for anyone else.  Any time I put Jeremy's hand where she was kicking, she would stop immediately.  It's nice that she will now perform for her father.


Today my mom and younger sister and I went to visit my friend/my brother's girlfriend at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where she is interning. We had a lot of fun walking around the galleries.  I'm pretty sure the baby really liked the Contemporary Art, because in those galleries she would kick me so hard that it almost brought me to my knees, and I had to sit a few times.  She probably just wanted me to have more time to appreciate the art.  Our baby is such a genius.

Finally, since my shower is tomorrow (!!!), I thought I should finally post pictures of some of the things we have already received.  


First, we got our awesome travel system (stroller and car seat combo) from Kevin and Ashley (Jeremy's cousin and his wife).  

Jeremy keeps asking if he can try it out by putting the cat in and pushing him around.  For some reason, I don't think MoJo would appreciate that.


Next, we got our high-tech bathtub that gives you a temperature read out and has a reservoir that holds the water until it is the correct temperature.  We received that from Jeremy's older brother Christopher and his wife Molly.  They also sent along a hilarious personalized card.

Yup, that's Jeremy's head on a baby in the tub they got us.  I laughed so hard when I opened this card!!


We also got our pack and play from two of my mom's friends, Sue and Sue (cute, right?).

We were awfully proud that Jeremy got this thing together!  Well done!


We are really looking forward to seeing lots of friends and family at the shower tomorrow.  Any bets on whether or not I will cry while opening presents?

29 weeks

Yesterday was 29 weeks.  I am really moving along here.  This week the baby is nearly three pounds and measures about 17 inches from head to toe.  Though she's getting pretty close to her birth length, she still has to chub out a bit.  In fact, over the next 11 weeks, she'll more than double -- or even come close to tripling -- her weight.  As she grows and the room gets tighter, supposedly I'll be less likely to feel those big kicks she has been dishing out.  However, I'll also be more likely to get poked by an elbow or jabbed by a knee.


Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain.  This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in her hardening skeleton each day.

Don't mind how disheveled I look in this picture -- I had just gotten home at 11:30 PM and Jeremy didn't get home until almost 1 AM.  Don't worry, it was just a normal Saturday for him -- probably hookers and whatnot.  Okay, he was at a graduation Open House with his family.  Whatever.

I, on the other hand, was seeing Kathy Griffin (!!!) one of my favorite comedians EVER!  Here's me and the baby all excited to go in:

We went with my good friend Jess, and the baby seemed to enjoy herself.  She danced along to the music playing before the show, and she kicked in between jokes, but every time I laughed really hard, she must have enjoyed the rocking and was totally calm.  I also managed to avoid all elbows to my belly, which has become very hard in crowds.  

It has been a good week, especially with all the good news at the doctor's office.  Next week is 30 weeks -- which seems HUGE to me -- and my BABY SHOWER!  I am so excited!!

28 Weeks

I missed last week's update and belly shot because we were up on Mackinac Island for four days.  I even forgot to get a good profile shot of my belly.  I had just mentioned to Jeremy that we couldn't forget to take one when we got to a pretty spot, but then I walked up 304 stairs, so my only thoughts were death and I forgot all about it.  But I did get some shots that give you a pretty good idea of how big I was.  These were all taken on Friday, when I was one day away from 27 weeks:

The baby makes her first visit to Arch Rock

Beautiful weather for our 8-mile bike ride around the Island!

I felt the need to pose for Tommy's camera.  One of my friends said the caption for this picture is "I'm too sexy for my belly!"

I am wearing HEELS in this picture!  So stupid!

We all had loads of fun, but unfortunately, I was a big buzzkill.  The day before we left, I was working and packing and cleaning and preparing directions for the dog/cat/housesitter from 7 AM until 2 AM ... and then I looked at my feet.  They were bigger than I had ever seen them, and my body told me there was no way it would allow me to sleep with my feet elevated while I laid on my side (per doctor's orders), so I went to bed and hoped for the best.  I woke up four hours later to leave and, surprise, surprise -- they looked about the same.  Then we spent 3 hours in the car, half an hour on the ferry and then started a vacation that included a lot of walking, standing, and socializing.  So, basically, my feet never had a chance to return to normal, and I walked around getting shocked looks from people when they saw that my ankles were bigger than my knees and my swollen feet were jammed into dress shoes like ten pounds of sausage in five pounds of casing.

So, I was pretty lame, complained about it, and put my feet up on people's laps whenever I got five minutes to do so.  At one point, I went into my mom and dad's suite and she had some friends I had never met hanging out in the sitting room.  I plopped my feet on her lap and they both gasped.  The husband said "Is there anything we can do for you??" and the wife immediately ran back to her room and got a tube a cooling lotion to use on my feet.  She even insisted that I keep it because I needed it more than she did!  

Also, I don't know why, but the beds killed me this year.  I have stayed in this hotel for years and years, and usually I wake up feeling rested and ready to take on the day.  They are very nice mattresses.  This year, the same bed I slept in last year felt like a torture device and I woke up every morning exhausted and with every muscle in my body aching.  On the last night, my arms were actually going numb because of the knots in my back, and instead of letting Jeremy drink and party with everyone else, I insisted on an hour-long back rub because I was certain I was about to die.  So ... sorry fellow travelers!!  And especially Jeremy. :(

Well, that was a big re-cap, but now here we are at TWENTY EIGHT WEEKS!!!  I am offically seven months pregnant and in my (drumroll) ... THIRD TRIMESTER!!!  

Look how big she is!!

This week our amazing baby has probably reached two and a half pounds and could be as long as 16 inches!  Along with being able to cough, hiccup, suck, and take practice breaths, she can now blink and experiences Rapid Eye Movement when she sleeps!  Thankfully, her lungs are fully mature at this point, which is the milestone I was waiting for with bated breath.  Although she would still need a LOT of help if she were born at this point, she is out of the "danger zone."

It hit me in the shower this morning that it was my third trimester and I frantically started listing all the things we have yet to do (because we had SO MUCH time) like finding a pediatrician, pre-registering at the hospital, and taking a childbirth class.  Of course, when I freaked out, Jeremy just patted my hand and told me we couldn't do ALL of those things today, so we will sit down tomorrow and make a schedule of when to get those things accomplished in the next month.  What a guy.

Tonight I am off to a Girls Night with some old friends from high school.  We'll see how the baby likes the car trip from Rochester Hills and back.  She has been giving me some trouble to and from work lately.  I often have to lean really far to the right so the pain in my left side will go away. Oh well, I have a lot of working left to do and that means a lot more driving, so we will both just have to get used to it.

My ligament pain has also returned with a vengeance, at exactly the same time when I am having a hard time hauling myself in and out of certain positions.  At night, I usually wake up about ten times, whimpering because the hip I'm laying on hurts so bad.  When I have heaved myself halfway to the other side, my ligaments stretch and I feel like someone is stabbing me under my belly, so I flop back down.  It can take a few tries to roll over now, and all the while I am grunting.  Of course, Jeremy sleeps right through this.  I am going to need a system of pulleys and levers soon! :)

I guess I never appreciated being able to just get up off the couch or go from sitting on the floor to standing or roll over in bed without effort and embarrassment.  I will cherish when I am able to again! :)

A few big achievements also took place this week.  The baby has been SO ACTIVE and sometimes I feel like she is beating me up in there, but every time I put someone else's hand where she was moving, she would instantly freeze, then the second they gave up and moved their hand and I put mine back, she would go bonkers again.  Sigh.  She also moves so much now that I see my belly moving like an alien movie all the time.  I even freaked a student out in the Writing Center because she was doing it, but Jeremy couldn't see it.  But THIS week, Jeremy felt TONS of hard kicks AND saw my belly moving around!  AND I finally found the baby's heartbeat and put Jeremy's hand on it ... and he FELT IT!!!  It has been a good week! :)

26 Weeks

26 weeks!  Our little girl now weighs two whole pounds and is about 14 inches long!

In other big news, her eyes, which until now were developing under fused eyelids, are starting to open!  Obviously, there is nothing good to see in there, but she might respond to bright lights near my belly with increased pulse or movement.  She is able to react to loud noises outside the womb as well because her brain has become more developed and sophisticated with an increase in brain waves (I know this part is true, because we went to a movie on Thursday and she simply THRASHED around the whole time.  I felt bruised when we finally got out of the loud theater!).

The baby's nostrils have also begun to open, and she is making periodic muscular breathing movements to prepare for drawing air into her lungs after birth.  Within the next two days, the air sacs will also begin to develop in her lungs.  Also, over the next couple of days, her fingernails will be visible!

Her movements are strong and frequent, as she is practicing movements she will need outside the womb.  Apparently, she is even "pedaling" her feet against my belly (this made a lot of sense when I read it!  So THAT'S what's she doing when I thought I could feel both of her feet at once!).

I am feeling bigger and bigger, and the baby's kicks are getting harder and harder!!  I can't believe how big of a wallop she packs when she only weighs two pounds.  She also found some new, not-so-pleasant places to kick me this week.  

However, her kicks are now strong enough that Jeremy can easily feel them!!!!  Last night at 9:50, he felt a bunch in a row, including one that was on the opposite end of my belly -- she kicked so hard at the top of my belly that he felt it at the bottom!  It was so great.  His face lit up like he had just won the lottery.  Then, ten minutes later, he was actually around to see her "super-activity" time and saw my stomach bouncing around while she kicked like crazy.  It was a big night!

Some not-as-awesome news from yesterday -- the name Jeremy really wanted for the baby that I definitely wasn't in love with but thought I could learn to like?  I finally admitted to Jeremy that I was never going to be happy with it.  So we got the baby name book back out and started over from scratch.  The good news is, I think we are down to about three or four, so I think we will be fine.  I feel really badly about dashing Jeremy's hopes like that, but the name just didn't sit right with me.  I just knew it wasn't her name.

Today, we went to Detroit for the Race for the Cure.  About 30 of Jeremy's family came out and about 25 of those walked or ran the 5K.  I, however, brought a snack and sat on the ground in Detroit and waited at the finish line to cheer them on.  Apparently I looked like this:

Classic.  Jeremy thought it was worth capturing for posterity.  

The baby kicked really hard when we cheered for the runners!  She loves saving boobies too! :)

25 Weeks

Head to toe the baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches and still weighs only about a pound and a half, but she's starting to fill in with some baby fat.  As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn.  The small blood vessels under her skin are also starting to fill with blood, so her skin is taking on a pink color.


She's also growing more hair, and if we could see it, we'd now be able to discern its color and texture!  Her adult tooth buds are also developing up above her baby teeth buds in her gums.  The baby’s nostrils (which until now have been plugged) begin to open this week. By today, blood vessels will have developed in the lungs.  After birth, these vessels will allow blood to flow through the lungs to intercept oxygen and circulate it to her tissues.  The amniotic fluid (all six gallons of it) is also being removed and replaced by my system EVERY THREE HOURS!  Yikes!


The baby continues to practice reflex movements, and by now, she has developed the startle reflex, meaning she might jump when she hears loud noises outside the womb.  Jeremy said he would be more careful from now on! :)

As for me, I am uncomfortable, but feeling good overall.  The kicking is getting harder and more frequent -- but Jeremy still cannot feel it! Every night, I put his hand on my stomach and keep saying over and over again, "THERE!  Did you feel THAT?" and he shakes his head. Soon enough, I guess.


Jeremy and I did some planning in the nursery today.  We had some high hopes that we might not be living in this city or this house when the baby came, but we got some good news the other day that Jeremy got another job at the Henry Ford Museum, so we will be here for a little while longer at least.  So, we started the process of changing the room next to ours from the workout/storage room into a nursery and talked about what we will have to do to make it work.


There are a few problems, like PANELING on the walls, which we probably can't paint pink because we are renting, and the fact that there is NO CLOSET.  However, there is an entry to a flight of stairs that leads to the attic, so I am going to buy two tension rods today -- one for baby clothes and one to go behind it with a white curtain to make a fake back wall of a closet.  Genius, right?  And, the room is actually ivory on the top half of the walls and lavender on the bottom half (because the homeowner was going for "neutral" ...?) so if I just do pink bedding and pink accents, I think it can work.  Anyway, I know we could have MUCH WORSE options for a room to put the baby in, and like Jeremy said today, it is not like we are putting her in our horrific "Silence of the Lambs" basement.  So, parents of the year, right? :)

Visible Kicks

Jeremy has been sad lately that he can't feel the baby kick.  I think part of it is he doesn't really know what he is trying to feel, but most of the time I can't even feel her kicks just by touching my belly.  I have been pretty down about it too, because he really wants to feel it and I really want him to share it.


Anyway, I have been pretty sure that the kicks were getting stronger, and for the past couple of days she has even been kicking me really early in the morning (she used to sleep in until about noon!) and I even thought I SAW my belly move from big kicks, but it was always out of the corner of my eye.  Tonight, however, I FOR SURE saw my belly moving from her kicks!!  I put my hand where she was kicking, and sure enough, I could feel it.  Of COURSE, Jeremy is gone and won't be home until tomorrow night! :(  But hopefully she will practice until he gets home and he can get a show right away.

23 weeks

Today is 23 weeks, and that means that the baby is embarking on a weight-gain extravaganza over the next four weeks.  Today she is probably a little over 11 inches in length and a little over a pound, but in the next four weeks she will more than double in weight!  YAY, but ... she already seems to be taking up a lot of room, so ... we'll see.

Her hearing is also getting better and better every day, to prepare for all of the sounds she will hear when she arrives.  She is also supposedly able to feel me moving around now because her sense of feeling is so well developed.  It only seems fair, since I can DEFINITELY feel her moving around in there!  She continues to be a big mover.  I have to constantly remind myself that she is only a pound -- it is hard to believe she is so little but can make her presence known with as much force as a bowling ball! 

Her skin is also reddish in color right now because of the rapidly developing blood vessels and the fact that her skin is so thin.  The blood vessels in her lungs are also developing to prepare for breathing.

I continue to get bigger and bigger -- big surprise -- and have been getting some fun comments lately.  

Strangers will say, "OH MY, you are ready to POP!  When are you due?" and of course, I tell them "In four months" and they look horrified.  This past week, FOUR different people at work asked me, "Are you SUPPOSED to be this big?!?!"  I REALLY wanted to say, "I don't know.  Are YOU?" but I just smiled and said something vague and walked away.  

Other than unwelcome comments, I am feeling the stretch in my muscles all up and down my torso and am getting some unwanted pressure on my diaphram, making it difficult to talk a lot when I am teaching (which, if you know me, is a CRYING shame, since it is what I do best!), but things are pretty good overall.  Still some feet and ankle swelling, aches and pains, and trouble sleeping, but nothing unusual, and nothing that I don't already know is going to get worse as time goes by! :)

In just a few weeks I will be in the third trimester, and I can't wait!

22 Weeks

Today the baby has reached the one pound mark!  She is probably about 8 1/2 inches from head to rump and 11 1/2 inches from head to toe.  

Her lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and even though her eyelids are still fused shut, she is making blinking movements.  She can also perceive light and dark more accurately through her eyelids, and her irises are fully developed (but they still lack pigment).  Her hearing is getting better and she can probably recognize my voice.  She can also now be aroused from sleep by loud noises outside the womb.  Her eyebrows are almost totally filled in, and she is growing more hair on her head every day -- but the hair looks white because it is devoid of all pigment.  It might look something like this:

During this week, the brain development begins a big burst that will only end when the baby reaches five years of age.  The baby's sense of touch is also developing, and as she develops her grip, she might even grab the umbilical cord to hold onto (since there is nothing else in there to grab).  She is even developing tooth buds beneath her gums and taste buds on her tongue!

I am feeling okay overall.  I have some feet swelling after long days at work, and I have lots of leg and hip cramps, but nothing big.  When I get into my "approved" sleeping positions, my arms fall asleep pretty quickly, and I have to wake up often to shake the circulation back into them, but I am getting better at staying on my side at night, so that is good.

The baby is moving a LOT lately.  She also seems to have similar sleep patterns to her dear old mother.  She doesn't like to wake up until mid-afternoon, and she starts really bouncing around at about 10 PM and stays up having her little dance parties well into the AM.  We'll have to see if that stays the same once she is "on the outside!" :)

New Due Date?

I just read a very interesting fact.  Supposedly, babies are generally born about 147 days (plus or minus 15) after the mother feels the first movement.  


Okay, give me a moment to do some math ...


Okay, that was exhausting.


My due date is August 28th.
147 days after the day I first felt movement (March 27th) is August 21st.
Give or take 15 days would put it as early as August 6th (yes please!!) or as late as September 5th (NO SIR!!).


All of my mom's babies were early, and most of my mother-in-law's babies were late (except Jeremy.  Phew!!).  A late baby in August does not sound fun to me, so let's hope for on time or early!


I can't wait to look back at this when the baby is born and see if it came anywhere close!

20 Weeks, Continued

Here is my 20 week belly shot from last night:

I had to wait for Jeremy to get home from the Tigers game so he could take the picture, and then when he went to snap the photo, the battery died.  I reminded him that I haven't been able to find my charger in weeks and asked him to help me find it.  We thought it might be in the overflowing office closet, so we spent about two hours organizing and cleaning.  We got two bags of garbage out (so embarrassing!) ... but no charger.  Five minutes later I found it shoved back and hidden in the corner of a drawer where I had already looked.  Classic.  At that point, dinner was two hours late, but dang if we don't have a clean closet!

When Jeremy was at the game yesterday, I was sitting on the couch doing tons of work for the new semester, and every so often I went to www.detroittogers.com to check the score.  Every time I visited the website, the baby kicked!  I told Jeremy when he got home, and the biggest smile I have seen in weeks spread across his face. :)  He has big plans for a Tigers fan!


We also watched SNL last night, and Justin Beiber performed.  We were obviously not impressed with the tween, and then Jeremy said "Oh my god ... one day our baby will be a tween and like terrible and annoying things!!!"  Yikes.  I said, "Yeah, that's why it's a baby first and by the time it gets to be a tween you already love it too much to give it away.  Hopefully."

Update on Kicks

I was still feeling a little scared that I wasn't feeling the baby move a lot.  I know another mother who is due only 3 days before me, and she mentioned she is feeling a LOT of activity.  I was a little scared, and even took to poking my belly from time to time, asking the baby to move (which horrified Jeremy beyond belief!).


Thankfully, since Monday I have been feeling more movement, and yesterday the baby must have been having a dance party in there!  While I was teaching from 12 to 6 yesterday, I don't think the baby stopped moving!!  Whether it was loud or quiet, I was standing or sitting, the baby was bouncing around like crazy!  


One of my students came up after class and said "It is so cool to see your baby move while you are talking to the class!  I'm sorry, but I will be watching your belly all semester!" and I was SHOCKED!!!  The movements still feel like little tiny pops to me, so I never considered that anything was visible to others!  On the other hand, she might have just WANTED to see movement.  Most of my classes this term are heavy on the female side, and about 90% of them are mothers and want to talk to me about the baby before class and during breaks.  I will never be short of advice!


Anyway, last night, the little one kept up the dancing long after I was done teaching.  It was grooving while Jeremy and I watched a movie and then for the three hours that I laid in bed trying to all asleep after Jeremy did.  Nothing much yet today, but it must have tired itself out from yesterday!  


I also read today that skinner women feel movement earlier (which I kind of figured) than heavier women, and all the moms I know who felt lots of early movements were skinny-minnies, so that makes sense that I would have to wait a week or two more than them.  


Jeremy has only felt one kick so far, and I am trying like crazy to get him to feel more, but whenever I feel something and slap his hand into place, the baby freezes.  I feel bad, because I know he wants to feel it too.


Anyway, I know in a few months I might be wincing from these kicks, but right now I want them all the time!!!

Our Baby Now Kicks on Demand

Last night I was telling Jeremy that I hadn't felt any kicks since the night I first felt them for sure, on Tuesday.  I told him it made me slightly nervous and a little sad.  Jeremy suggested we play some really loud music, since the baby kicked in response to a very loud man talking.  So I suggested that Jeremy just shout "KICK!" at my belly.  Jeremy refused, saying, "What if the baby were born deaf?!?!" and I said shouting would not deafen our baby.  He responded, "Yeah, but what if it were born deaf ANYWAY?  Then I would feel like I caused it!"  


So, we didn't shout at the baby.  But about one hour later, when I was laying in bed, the baby kicked a few times on the right side, and then a few on the LEFT side, where I have never felt kicks before!  The baby not only listened to us, but did some fancy acrobatics.


THEN, this morning, Jeremy and I were sitting on the couch, and I leaned over the lay on him, putting my belly on his knee ... and Jeremy felt his first kick!!!

REAL BABY KICKS!!!

For real this time, guys!!!  Drumroll .... I felt the baby kick last night! And kick and kick and kick.  It was crazy and fun and amazing.


I was at a huge college-wide meeting last night, and I was just sitting there with my hands on my belly (to signal to the strangers at my table that I was pregnant and not just bellylicious -- we had assigned seating so we could meet new people.  Like a cruise ship.  Lame.) when one speaker handed the microphone over to another speaker.  This guy REALLY wanted to make sure we heard him, and he was SHOUTING into the microphone.  He was so loud that I felt the vibrations.  It was unreal.  Then, all of a sudden, I felt a little pop under my hand.  I knew it had to be a little kick, but I waited and thought about it for awhile. What if I had imagined it?  But then, pop pop ... pop ... pop pop pop!  A bunch of little kicks, like my little one was saying SHUT THIS GUY UP!!  WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM AND WHY CAN'T HE MODULATE THE VOLUME OF HIS VOICE?? I AM TRYING TO RELAX HERE!!  It was amazing.


I kept feeling little kicks, and then as soon as loud guy handed off the mic, they stopped.  I have a sassy little baby that is sensitive to loud noises, just like momma.