Yep, I did! I felt the baby move! It’s amazing that I was able to feel anything this early. Phyllis says it’s because A is so small (although I’m not sure A feels that small right now). Either way, I’ll take it! Last week, after A had been feeling the baby consistently for a few days and I was growing increasingly jealous, she came up with a code word for me so I would know when the baby was kicking (or punching or cheerleading or whatever). The plan was for A to say, “pop” (yes, like corn), and I would then try to get my hand there as quickly as possible. We tried it for a couple days without luck, and then it happened on Monday! To contextualize my moment, picture A and me lounging on the couch, riveted to Michelle Obama’s speechifying on the opening night of the DNC, my hand resting on A’s belly. The baby was obviously moved by Michelle verbally kicking some ass and high-fived me though the uterine wall! If it’s a boy, we’re naming him Barack Hussein Cash. Just kidding, Family. We often joke about what we’re going to name the baby, because people ask us all the time. We only recently decided on our girl name, but we are nowhere close with our boy name. So, if you do ask, be prepared to hear something surprising and most likely fake…or maybe not. We may very well say we’re naming the baby Jackedocious or Peyton Manning Cash or something equally improbable just to scare you. (OOH! A just felt the baby again!) And Bill Clinton is kicking some ass right now, too.
Archive for August, 2008
Just when you think not much is happening, something really big happens. I guess that’s true in most of life. Lately, I haven’t had much to report, I’ve not been sure what to post, not sure our friends and family really care if A had a little heartburn today. Basically, things continue to go well. We’re in a no-news-is-good-news kind of period.
We’ve just been living our regular lives, going to work, coming home to hours of riveting Olympic coverage, and then going to sleep. Well, I guess watching the Olympics isn’t part of our daily routine in most years, but who can resist China’s desire to put on such a spectacle that nothing is spared–not the feelings of the adorable 9-year-old made to lip-sync during the opening ceremonies because she lacked talent, not the heart of the 7-year-old who really did sing but was deemed too unattractive to appear on camera, and certainly not the truth–sixteen-year-old gymnasts and 29 footprints padding across the night sky. And am I the only one who thought the images of 2000-plus synchronized drummers were a bit unsettling? Can you say Leni Riefenstahl? Why else would they have instructed the young pounders to smile more if not to tone down the creep factor? But I’m getting way off topic.
A is for Apron
So, in the midst of the humdrum, we started wondering when A would begin to feel the baby in action, and what would it feel like? My mom said it would feel like having butterflies in her tummy. Our midwife said some people describe it as a “fluttering.” Then I read somewhere that it could feel a little like popcorn popping–that’s my favorite, of course–I’ve been calling our baby Niblet since conception. But when it’s the first baby, it’s hard to discern baby movements from a little gas. Really, how are you supposed to know? Every day for the last week or so I’ve been asking A if she’s oiling up that popper, because I am so ready for that popcorn to start a-poppin, but not a single kernel had…UNTIL TODAY!! A was driving home from work and felt something so definitive that it had to be the baby. It startled her a bit, and then the Niblet slugged (well, more like tapped) her again, and again, in about the same spot and somewhat rhythmically. Woo! Too exciting! Just now, she said she felt it again. I tried to feel it, but it’s too soon for that–which is SO not fair! I cannot wait to feel the little Niblet pop!
OK, I’m back. I got a little off track for a couple weeks, but I’m back. And A is feeling good and looking great as you can see here. I think we’re about 15 weeks, but since there are at least three ways to calculate gestational age it gets confusing, so we’ve started saying “about 4 months” as this time measurement makes more sense to most people outside the midwife’s office anyway. Alternatively, when asked, “so how far along are you?” we often respond with, “oh, we’re due on January 23,” because that’s really what people want to know. That’s funny too though, since Niblet is following Niblet’s schedule and will come out whenever Niblet is good and ready, thank you very much!
So, as I was saying we’re about four months along, and when you think about it, that’s almost halfway there! Wow – I just thought about that for the first time. Eek!
And so much to do still. We’ve been researching like mad and deciding what we need and, more to the point, what we don’t need. There is such a marketing frenzy pressuring parents-to-be to amass a ton of baby gear before the little one arrives. Lots of really expensive crap is hurled at vulnerable expecting moms and dads by big box baby stores and glossy parenting mags with the subtle implication that it is all necessary for “good” parenting and “safe” child-rearing (read the book Parenting, Inc.). While it wasn’t so hard for us to decide we don’t need the latest high-tech gadgetry to feel like we can responsibly parent the niblet, we do struggle a bit with our desire to raise the perfect eco-baby of our dreams. Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? Well, we troll Craigslist for gently used items, decided to splurge for the organic cloth diapers (because we came to the early realization that we’ll never have the time or flexible schedules to raise a diaper-free baby), and then caved in a moment of weakness to some incredibly cute sale items at Baby Gap. We’re all over the board, really – slowly acquiring some of the essential (and not-at-all essential) items, like the organic crib mattress we found on Craigslist last week. And we don’t even have the crib yet (gasp!). So, yeah, we’re halfway there.
