We Have a Visual

And I don't mean sonogram video or photos -- we're talking realtime action here in the form of lumps on my belly. Little Wee has gotten big enough / strong enough in the last week or two to power through all his cushioning and make little bumps in my skin.

I've been able to see movement (sometimes single pokes, sometimes drum rolls) for about a week -- especially when I'm laying on my back with my head propped up "on watch" -- but Chris just saw him for the first time this weekend. Our son is a bit of a tease and seems to have made a game of giving me enough surface pokes that I call Chris over to see but then doing a deep dive so Chris just thinks I'm making stuff up. Now Chris knows, though, that it's for real.

I kept trying to demonstrate to Chris by pulling my skin up where Wee just was, but I don't have enough extra skin to get a hold of, so that never worked! Can't really describe what it looks like any better than the word "lump" -- a little like a cartoon when a charater gets a lump on their head after getting smacked with a hammer. So now being pregnant has officially gotten weird...

My Bellybutton -- HA!

Chris and I noticed recently that my bellybutton is shrinking. I think I knew to expect this based on other people's experiences and simple logic (the space my innie used to take is being usurped), but I still laugh out loud any time I look at it. I never thought much about my bellybutton until I started losing it, so I don't think it was notably deep or unusual. Right now the opening is shrinking -- almost puckering -- and my little button is getting shallower. I guess it'll get all the way flat and then poke out the other direction soon enough. Hopefully I'll still be laughing at it (at anything?) then!

What's Wee Up To This Month? Installment Seven

Month Seven -- Weeks 25-28

Size -- The little guy starts the month at 1 pound, 3 ounces / 8.5 inches (crown-to-rump) and finishes off at 2 pounds / 10 inches (crown-to-rump), so we're still bulking up rather than lengthening out (both of us are bulking up). Interesting tidbit here -- if you stretch him out at the end of the month, Wee will be 14-15 inches long (head-to-toe), so he will outsize a Ken doll by about an inch. Weighs a heck of a lot more than Barbie's boyfriend, though...

Development -- At the beginning of this month, Wee will already have a sense of equilibrium, which answers the "Can he feel it when I roll from side to side?" question : Yes, effective right now. He knows when he's right side up and when he's upside down, but I don't think he really has a preference. His biggest achievement this month will be to add blood vessels to his little lungs to get them ready to do some breathing. Also, bones are still hardening, and brain is still growing.

Appearance -- His retinas are done developing now, so he will start to open his eyes and blink -- which means that now it's time to tease him with a flashlight! Apparently he'll squirm away from it, which might not be fun for me, so we might only play one time. He probably has a distinct hair color at this point, and I bet it's brown and a little shaggy like Chris'. :)

Rachel's belly at 24 weeks

The Babymoon and Chris Meets Wee

The Babymoon

Wee has now gone international. We took our last-blast-before-the-baby-triples-our-luggage trip over New Year's (aka "The Babymoon") -- took the week to see Madrid, Lisbon, Sintra (outside of Lisbon), and New York. I was cleared for travel before we went with the warnings to drink more water than usual and not to sit still on the planes for more than 2 hours (increased risk for blood clots when you're pregnant). Didn't make the flight too restful since I was up and moving every 1-2 hours (due to the increased water intake and fear of clotting blood -- "What does a blood clot feel like? How will I know if I get one? Does it hurt? Will I die right away or will it be long and agonizing?"). All the worrying was for naught -- we landed in Madrid fine and flew right over to Lisbon. Spent a few days there -- one as a day trip to a city called Sintra, which was beautiful -- then flew back to Madrid for New Year's Eve and some touring the next day. Did some really raucous partying in the streets of Madrid for the big night -- not so raucous that I broke any pregnancy rules or that kept us from getting back to our hotel by 12:30 when the subway closed, though. Toured around Madrid on New Year's Day and ate ourselves silly on churros and chocolate sauce. Flew home through New York so we could get some pizza that night and spend a day walking around -- froze little Wee's nuts off (sorry, Chris, but I couldn't resist) in the 15 degree weather. Bought the best baby thing ever! at the FAO Schwarz near Central Park -- you'll have to wait for nursery pictures to be posted to fully appreciate this purchase, but it's similar to yet also better than something we dreamed up. A huge felt wall map of the world with little country names and people and animals and modes of transportation that you can velcro on. It's possible that the gift was more for us than the baby, but we think we'll be spending enough time in the baby's room that we deserve some cool stuff in there, too!

Chris Meets Wee

Some exciting news... One night in Madrid, Wee was really bumping around in there, so I took Chris' hand and put it where the last poke had been. A few seconds later, the little boy poked again and poked hard enough for Chris to feel it! (I've been putting my hands on him when he's really bopping but usually his jabs are still too weak to feel on the outside.) Chris gasped and looked at me all wide-eyed -- I said, "You felt it!" and he said, "I felt it!" :) That was the first time we've been able to line up Chris' hand with Wee's poke. It has worked one other time since then and felt more like a roll than a focused jab, so we think he might have been breakdancing that second time. Our baby can do the Worm -- we are so, so proud!