Documenting the Bump: Weeks 19-22
At the beginning of my pregnancy, everything seemed to fall on May. “I bet I finally start showing in May.” “We’ll know if we are having a boy or girl at the end of April, so we can really begin planning in May.” “At the end of May, baby will be viable, and that’s going to be when we can really relax.” “I am going to be a mom over Mother’s Day this May.” Yes, May has lived up to everything I expected.
I feel absolutely pregnant these days. My belly gets a little bit bigger with each passing day and I am finally beginning to fill out those maternity clothes I bought on sale a few months ago. These must be the days that make you want to be pregnant over and over again. I’m so happy, so calm, so ecstatic and at peace.
My new favorite moment is Saturday mornings. I’m waking up early these days, about 6 a.m. without an alarm. But, on Saturday mornings, I don’t need to get out of bed so I lay there with the cats cuddled around me and we feel the baby move around. I usually doze back to sleep, and then wake a few hours later with Alex and we do it all over again, playing a sort of “catch the kick” game where we wait for his next big kicking storm to fire up. We burn away the better part of Saturday mornings feeling his little kicks, but it’s my favorite part of the week. Just us, the cats, and our baby. It feels like we’re really a family already and we love it.
There are still a few side effects of this whole human-growing thing that I grow tired of dealing with most of the time. And I’ve reached a new level of this pregnancy thing that I think of as the “no turning back now, labor and delivery is inevitable” time period. I feel a mixture of anxiety, shock, worry, excitement, and disbelief to the task in front of me. And my concept of time has completely disappeared. September, or even sooner if he so pleases, will be here eventually. But whatever eventually means, I neither comprehend nor am I ready to figure out.
There’s much to be done and so very little time to do. There’s much to decide and no grasp of how to choose. We’re biting off little chunks- the nursery is coming together with decent progress, we have a pile of clothing and toys and newborn-sized disposable diapers waiting for him. And my growing belly is telling me we’re doing it all just right.
But, still, never before have I embarked upon such a wild unknown. I’m just trying to enjoy the ride.
(That face up there is a face of excitement and terror, still soaking in the thoughts that my baby is a BOY, since we’d only found out hours earlier.)
(And in case it’s not totally obvious, he had a HUGE growth spurt at 20 weeks. I think I ate probably 5,000 calories per day (seriously) around that time. I was always hungry and that little dude was why.)
