First Belly Pic - December 30, 2008
The evening before Thanksgiving 2008, I felt my belly move for the first time. I had felt movement before that point, but it was indistinguishable from gas bubbles in my belly. I had already been wearing maternity pants since the end of September, but my belly bump was still hardly noticeable to other people. I just looked a little bloated.
That Thanksgiving Eve, I suddenly felt something like a tickling string of gas bubbles that started at my belly button and traveled up toward my sternum.
"Okay!" I announced to Dan, "that definitely wasn't me!" Dan moved closer and put his hand on my belly where I had felt the bubbling. I felt another tickle in my belly and laughed.
"I definitely felt that, and it sure wasn't you," Dan said. He was as awed and weirded out about the strange sensation as I was.
I was very pleased that Dan was able to share the special moment with me. I had read several accounts in baby books and on the Internet that some expectant fathers felt left out of the pregnancy experience because the mothers were able to feel the strange movements and they couldn't.
After Thanksgiving, I enjoyed feeling the movements grow stronger and more frequent each day. It is comforting to have a daily reminder that there actually is something growing and thriving in my belly.
I couldn't see my belly move by itself, but when I was watching TV, I would balance a remote control on my belly, and every once in a while, I could see it wiggle a little bit. That was a very entertaining game for me.
On January 9th, 2009, I saw my belly move for the first time. I was lying on the couch, starting intently at my belly for the slightest movement. I would often do this, hoping to see something happen, and just as often, I would be slightly disappointed that I didn't see the alien movement that many mothers had described to me.
All of the sudden, my belly moved. It reminded me of the old 80's Jell-O commercials. "Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle. .... J-E-L-L-O!"
Dan was there on the couch with me for that moment, too. He had long tired of me staring at my belly for no apparent reason, but his interest perked when I started laughing at my Jell-O belly.
This whole time that I've been watching my belly grow and start to move on its own, people in public have been still wary of acknowledging my pregnancy, unless I explicitly announced it to them when I saw them. I've overheard a few people whispering to other people, asking, "Is she?" and had other people apologetically and fearfully asking me if maybe I was. The checkout cashier guy at the grocery store asked me once if anything was new, and I couldn't help but look at him like I didn't know what he was talking about and tell him that we were just busy getting ready for the holidays.
From what I read about my December stage of pregnancy, I expected my belly to grow significantly over the Christmas holiday, so that when I returned to work in early January, my work friends would be so amazed and surprised at how large I had become. I grew a little. When I returned to work, people commented on how small my belly still was. That wasn't what I was expecting. My pregnant friend asked me at lunch one day, "Are you disappointed because some people still don't realize that you're pregnant?" Then it hit me. I was! It was a mixture of feeling like people always thought I was this big to begin with and disappointment that it wasn't obvious by now.
Over the past two weeks, though, my belly has continued to expand more quickly.
Last Tuesday, January 13th, I finally broke down and decided to go shop for some slip on or Velcro shoes, because sometime over Christmas and New Year's, my feet had disappeared and it was becoming progressively more difficult to tie my tennis shoes that I had been consistently wearing for the past few months. The shoe saleslady surprised me when she very openly said, "Oh, you're pregnant, congratulations, when are you due?" It was the first time that I didn't have to start my conversation with the words, "I'm pregnant." I wasn't sure how to react, but I was secretly pleased that it was so plainly obvious to her.
Since then, people who see me are congratulating me left and right. I'm still getting used to strangers greeting me by staring or pointing at my belly. It's definitely a strange experience.
In a very short time, the pregnancy has progressed so quickly from my belly not moving and people not realizing that I was pregnant. Time is moving quickly toward The Big Beginning, and Dan and I are both feeling the pressure to be ready (enough) on time. The baby room is cleared out and the official nesting stage has begun!
