5 Months

This month spanned the holidays, so I'm going to blame the 6 pounds I've gained on the baby (yes, she TOTALLY weighs 6 pounds at -4 months old. Are you implying that is unreasonable?), and not the deliciousness that is holiday food. This pregnancy has been marked by me being diligent in my scale watching, in my race to slow the weight gain as much as humanly possible (healthily obviously, no A-Team members here).

This was also the month of the two most common questions you will ever get when pregnant:

*squinting in concern* "How are you feeling?"

and

"Can you feel her kicking yet?"

My answer to Question 1 is always "Fat." It's hard not to say that when you can't button any jeans anymore, and the pregnant belly at this stage is not very different from the beer gut most men develop as soon as they turn 21.

Question 2 left me feeling a bit inadequate, even though I know that is silly. Until yesterday, my response was "Um no, I'm slow or something." (Look how uplifting I am with my responses! Ok, they're meant in a joking manner, I promise.) However...

Yesterday I had the big 5 month ultrasound at the hospital where they did an anatomy scan. First, it is still a girl, she didn't pull some kind of transgender trick on me in the womb. Second, it turns out I have an anterior placenta, which means my placenta is in the front of my body, so it will be harder for me to feel kicks because of the extra layer of placenta. My doctor then made me stick out my arm so she could give me an example of what it would feel like in my case - very gentle taps. Last night, I'm talking to Andrew, and I realize that she is kicking me, right below the belly button, and I think I've been having those taps for quite a while, I just didn't realize what was going on. So hurray! I am not as slow as originally thought! On the last day of my 5 month mark, I finally felt her kick, and now I can feel it often. Everyone says this will eventually get annoying, but for now, I'm rejoicing in it.

I tried a prenatal yoga class yesterday at the Motherhood Center, which was actually pretty great. It was harder than I anticipated - I thought they would take it easy on the room of orcas, but there was a lot of holding poses that made my thighs burn. Maybe I should spend more time doing this in the coming months...

The actual physical preparing of space for the baby is not going as well. I have the opposite of nesting instinct right now - the thought of cleaning/organizing/shopping/changing layouts makes me recoil in fear. Too many decisions! I'm hoping that will kick in sometime this spring. Right?

Hah, she just kicked. Hurray!