5/10/21
it seems like every time I feel him move, I hold my breath, involuntarily. I think it’s cause…I want to see what else he does and not disturb the movements he was going to do with any of my own movement, like how you freeze when you cross paths with an animal in the wild…but logically…it probably doesn’t make him move more whether I hold my breath or not.
have been really into milk lately. Have been drinking a lot of chocolate milk the past few weeks, and started eating more cereal with milk. When I pour the milk into the cereal, I pour extra so I’ll have some left over to drink after the cereal’s done.
5/11/21
How the pregnancy is changing my body (heavier load to carry all the time, shifted and shifting center of gravity, beach-ball-like obstacle in the way of all attempted positions) is kind of making me move more pitifully, in my opinion. Like I think if I were outside my body watching myself move, I’d feel a little sorry for myself: I’m out of breath and huffing and puffing after a few stairs, I need to hold onto something each time I get up—and do it much more slowly—or I can’t stand up, I’m like reaching and rolling from wherever I am to avoid the energy-draining task of just standing up, I’m sighing and moaning and groaning like an old man, I’m walking different, maybe waddling a little- my gait is definitely different in some way that is just coming naturally to me because of my changed and changing body. I wish I didn’t have to move like this, but…I feel all this weight on me now, and it’s my natural reaction. I guess I could try more consciously to think more lightly, to move more lightly…maybe that would make a small difference. I miss lying on my stomach and stretching out that way. When I feel like lying on my stomach, my substitute move has been just getting on all fours and just rocking and sometimes sticking my ass up in the air in this position and rocking.
5/12/21
11:00 AM – felt a few minutes of kicking/thumping around. If I’m not smiling at the moment, it always catches me off guard and makes me smile. Felt him moving pretty constantly until like 11:21! I was sitting down on the floor at laptop, and it was after I ate a lot (fruit crepes and then seafood w/rice)
Around 6:25 pm felt him moving again, I had just had a snack of garlic kale chips and then a little cheesecake.
5/13/21
today while staring at my belly I thought, “this is fucking incredible.” I’ve just never looked at it so much in my life, so often. Or imagined it holding something…like this. Like, a son, moving and growing- a person with a soul. Double spirits inside me—mine and his. And I never imagined it could take this shape—this like round beautiful pear shape, sloping down and jutting out more towards the bottom. That it could expand so much.
Still felt him moving today at random times. When I would feel it and put my hand there, he would stop or move to another area, so it’s hard for me to have my hand exactly where he’s pushing at the time, tho that’s what I’m trying to do hehe.
I’m eating as much as I want and pretty much whatever I want (which I think is mostly healthy stuff). I think I’m even overeating usually. But I can’t bring myself to get on the scale and weigh myself; I don’t want to see the number bc I know it must be over 110 by now- a number I’ve never come close to in my life previously. I know I should be gaining weight with the baby growing, and I accept it and I’m not doing anything unhealthy with my diet or anything (I’m really enjoying eating), but I just realized…how deeply this notion for girls to ideally be small and light is ingrained within me. Like it scares me to think of looking at the number- I don’t want to see the number.
Had this thought while reading a birth story last night in which the couple were surprised with a boy. The author wrote: “We were sure he was a girl. Then we saw the cord and something more: We realized he was a boy. What a big surprise for us! I was happy that Viktor, after so many women in his life during our time together, had his male companion at last.” I think most of this time, I’ve just been thinking about myself: how I’M going to get through the pain and manage the pain and intensity of birth, the ideal conditions for me and the baby, what the baby needs, etc. And these are all really important things to consider, but…I didn’t also consider, until last night when reading this story, this notion of…GIVING Rodrigo a son, a male companion with whom he can (at least initially on a biological level maybe) relate more easily to than a girl. Like I never thought that…this might be something really very precious to him: a boy who is his little buddy (as he is the only boy in a family of four sisters), all to himself, who (in a small way at least) belongs to him. It just made me happy, that I could do this for my husband, when I realized this. Maybe the thought of giving him this gift is something that will help push me forward and over the edge during the birth if I am too afraid or overwhelmed to go on. It makes sense that the thought would be for him—the linchpin thought—and not for myself. Like it feels better/more fitting to me that the thought that might help me cross over is not for myself, but for someone I love.
5/14/21
I’m seeing a theme in the birth stories I’m reading in Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth book. First contractions start which is a period of time you can be distracted, take walks, take bath, kiss husband. Then it gradually becomes more intense to the point where like ppl are doing stuff for you/asking you stuff but you can’t really respond at all in words- your body is in another mode, focused. Then at like full dilation, you reach this point of the greatest “pain”, where many women shout/think, “I can’t do this anymore” (this is the point I read from other sources that most women ask for epidural, when they’re almost there). And then right after this begins the pushing, which I’ve read several accounts now is a relief/ is exhilarating/ feels powerful. And when the baby’s head is crowning, it makes you feel stinging/burning/like you are shitting a bowling ball. One woman was so sure the baby was coming out her butt (she kept telling the midwives it was; they assured her it wasn’t). And after the head is out, the rest usually slides out easily. And then 1/2 hr later the placenta comes out but is like nothing compared to the baby, bc “it doesn’t have any bones.” Makes sense. For me the lesson is like…when you think you can’t take it anymore- at that point- just hold on a little longer, cause you’re almost there. Like life, kind of.
Feel baby kicking (in the same place for once!) around 2:40 pm. Pretty constant for a minute, it was just after I got off a call w/someone who I knew she was gonna call, but didn’t expect Facetime so I wasn’t prepared (had hair all up messy and glasses on), and was sweating a little from nervousness the whole time bc of unpreparedness, so maybe it was my adrenaline surging that he felt that was making him kick.
11:49 pm feel him thumping around again = ) just sitting at computer shopping for baby buntings for winter. He’s still moving at 12:12 am
5/15/21
Felt him moving around 10 when I was just sitting by the window reading in the morning, he moved for at least a few minutes.
Marriage Journal 