The baby is doing well, I think. She is mostly active in the evening or if I'm playing video games or on the phone to GM. She also likes sugary foods. So yes, it's a girl. During the routine scan it was established that everything from corpus callosum to toe looks fine, and her developmental markers are good (moving and sucking fingers and drinking etc.).
I hadn't really given much thought to what it would be like to be pregnant. I guess most people don't, because it's an experience so far removed from how we normally live our lives, full of abstraction and technical gadgets and ways of doing things without actually having to deal with them. Having sex and producing babies, as long as it's done the good oldfashioned way, is pretty much the only thing we still do, all by ourselves, from one end to the other, notwithstanding an epidural or forceps helpfully applied at the home stretch.
It's weird, it's someting my body is just... doing. All by itself. And it seems to know what to do. I think the underside of my breasts is beginning to show what might be tiny stretch marks, but otherwise I look as fit as a fiddle, just rounder. And without the waist. Maybe more like a double bass seen from the side, or at least a cello.
I had expected to feel more uncomfortable about my body changing so much, because I've always really liked it the way it is, but it just feels right. Of course, having a man who professes how beautiful he thinks I am on a daily basis probably helps lubricate the bodily ego to a large extent, but really, I think it's fascinating to see the body do what it's made to do, and making it look so easy, too. At least so far.
I've started giving GM daily updates from the belly region (which actually started a lot earlier as my digestive system has been generally schizophrenic since I got pregnant), which he has the good wits to pretend he appreciates. Like yesterday, I felt my first Braxton Hicks contraction. It was a very weird feeling, a section of my belly below the navel, about the size of a handball, suddenly jutted out with the taut texture of, well, an inflated handball. It only lasted for a few seconds, and then it was over. It wasn't painful at all, it just tickled. I started laughing out loud, alone in the living room, and felt a bit crazy.
Every day I look different. Some days my belly is massive, and I can feel my diaphragm being pushed upwards at the end of the day. Other days, like today, it still looks almost flat when I get up. Also, there are definitely kicks that can be felt on the outside. I wonder if they are purposeful, like the fetus is trying to turn, or if it's just a sort of "hey, my legs! I can move them!". Or if there is no conscience at all this early on. After all, the brain is pretty undeveloped still. So I keep taking my Omega 3 and hoping all will go well.
It is lovely to have someone to share all this with. I keep thinking that being a single pregnant woman must be lonely, even if you have all the closest friends in the world. GM is pretty much contract obliged to listen to everything I have to say, and he has a personal interest in the process which is purposeful, as we will be raising this child equally. I am not saying it would be impossible for me to do this on my own, I am just saying I think I would feel a sense of something missing. It does take two to make a baby, and there is probably a reason for that. It is not something one person should have to do alone.
We have started the naming debate sort of vaguely. Somebody pointed out to me that it's actually a really important act, and it is true that Freakonomics states that there are more dentists called Dennis than one would statistically speaking expect. Any suggestions received with thanks.
