Bubbles & the superhero

It first happened just over a week ago.

She had already been feeling movements for a couple of weeks, squirmy, twisting feelings. They have become more and more frequent, and following a pattern.

Last weekend she called me downstairs to announce that she had felt the baby move again, but this time, from the outside. I stood there with my hand pressed to the spot for God only knows how long, only to be left kick-less.

The following night we tried again, ET lay in bed announcing every time she felt something and I’d swiftly grab my pound of flesh.

Still nothing.

I decided that if the mountain wouldn’t kick for Mohammed, then Mohammed would jiggle and poke the mountain, while shouting rude names at it.

It worked.

With my palm flat on ET’s lower belly there came what I can only describe as a bubble rising to the surface. It wasn’t a pointed kick or jab, just a soft rounded mass coming close to the area of skin on skin.

Our first high five.

‘Well, hello kid.’ It does me well to imagine you come when I swear at you.

Throughout last week the movements have continued, and increased. Quiet during the day at work, and lively in the evening when ET gets home. She is not overly impressed with the idea that the kid only seems to get jiggy when it is at home with me wobbling, poking, and roaring at it.

Twenty and a half weeks was quite early to feel a first movement from the outside, but the midwife has explained why.

It seems the placenta is not between baby and belly, but rather behind the baby, leaving the belly dweller‘s movements one less obstacle to be felt through.

How cool is it that my child is wearing its placenta like a cape, not an apron?

With a look that would get it community service and a suspended sentence if it were to try it 20 years from now, kidlet is living out its days as a wee naked uterine superhero.

You'll take someone's eye out with that

Even though it would undoubtedly make 'him' quite famous, or 'her' Jerry Springer famous, not to mention us filthy rich, I have to quell a myth.

That is not, I repeat not, an enormous penis posing for the cameras on the ultrasound picture.

Genitalia fatter than our arms is not a family characteristic. A fact which allows the female members to breathe a sigh of relief. And walk in straight lines.

That is not to say that there is, or isn't, a normal sized one tucked away in there somewhere, curled up just waiting to be a source of shame and embarrassment for the child, and probable hilarity for everyone else.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, yesterday marked 21 weeks.

It's been a week in which we laid 20% of a floor, we chose a colour I previously never knew existed, and we finally brought home a drawer that the baby could sleep in, if it were able to assemble flat-pack furniture.

Under the heading of 'you couldn't make it up', ET's pregnancy brain made her adamant that somewhere in the house we have chocolate covered Doritos.

We don't. Thankfully.

Spread those legs, baby

I learned something today.

I discovered that if there’s ever a good time to yank out one of your wife’s rogue subterranean hairs, right before she sees her unborn baby is it. She just can’t stay mad.

With the gel squirted over her belly like something from cheap German porn, the tech fired up the ultrasound.

Boom. There it was, kidlet in full high definition with a heartbeat in stereo. It was big sized, baby shaped, and swinging its arms akin to an overweight drunken uncle fighting with the best man at a wedding.

It was stunning to see a real big baby in there, not just a shape.

The tech went about her business, zooming in on the brain, heart & other organs, legs and spine. It took two sessions for her to see all she wanted to check, with everything looking and measuring just perfectly.

There was one single negative point in the whole thing though, it appears that we, two shortarses, are having a shortarse baby.

Screw you Darwin.

It’s not easy to see what the ultrasounds show when zoomed in, we spent 2 minutes cooing at our baby’s cute face which we thought was staring right at the screen only to be told we were actually ‘ooohing’ and ‘aaahing’ over its kidneys.

Bloody cute kidneys though.

Then came the money shot, the declaration of pink or blue, the choosing of a flavour, boy or girl.

The tech peered between the baby’s legs long enough to make Gary Glitter uncomfortable before passing on the good news.

After years of people knowing far too much about this wee thing even before it existed, it can stay as secret good news, for now at least.