A kick or a cramp?

Susan’s starting to get over the sickness period. She’s not getting sick as often, and she’s figured out the foods she can’t eat. (Orange juice is one. Since my mom hasn’t been able to drink orange juice since she was pregnant with me, I’m wondering if it’s a Lavallee baby legacy.)

With the exception of a few physical changes, Susan’s not really showing just yet. There’s a slight change, but not something noticeable to those who wouldn’t know what to look for. So, we are still in at a point where no one knows unless we tell them. That’s good and bad. It’s good in that people aren’t staring at her as I predict they will when her belly starts to get bigger. It’s bad because even people who know forget she’s pregnant and are careless with their movements around her.

But most of all, it’s easy for both of us to forget there’s a baby growing inside of her from time to time. It’s not like it’s out of our minds completely. On the contrary, it’s always there in some way. But it takes some reminding for the things Susan’s doing.

One night recently she was exhausted. Nothing unusual there. This baby has done a number on her energy, which, aside from the sickness, has been the primary side effect of the pregnancy. There haven’t been any other signals really that anything is going in there. So it was a surprised when she plopped herself down on the bed one night like a rag doll sitting upright. As soon as she changed elevation, she grabbed her stomach and said, “Whoa! Was that a kick or a cramp?” Either way, I told her, she can’t go plopping herself down like that because the baby isn’t going to know what happened. If it wasn’t a kick, it might have been the baby itself not ready for the swift drop, like Disney’s Tower of Terror.

She couldn’t believe it it would be a kick because according to our countdown, she wasn’t far enough along to actually feel the baby. OR was she? We pored over a couple of books, and read that feeling the baby doesn’t usually happen until 16 weeks. Sickness doewsn’t usually end until 16 weeks, either. But this “kick” and her decreased frequency of vomiting would indicate she was closer to 16 weeks than we thought. This theory was reinforced a couple days later when she was driving along and talking to me on the phone. She suddenly felt something press inside of her. Was that a kick? Who knows? We’ll keep you posted.