Pregnancy: Week 16 – Silly Bandz to the Rescue

My jeans are on their last leg this week, and I might feel someone moving in there. Then again, it could just be digestion – hard to say.

I knew I should have asked Steve to dig my maternity jeans our of storage before he left this last time, but I really thought I could make it another two weeks before the buttons popped off my jeans. Bad judgement call. The second Steve was out of my line of vision, my jeans couldn’t keep my growing belly dammed up any longer, and I had to let the flood gates open and unbutton my pants. For the first time in weeks, I was able to take a deep breath. Maybe the headaches were due to the lack of oxygen?

Since I have short hair, I no longer have hair elastics, so I went digging through Moanna’s accessories in search of something. I tried her ponytail holders but they were so small, they actually made my jeans tighter instead of looser. I kept digging until I came across a pink princess Silly Band. Bingo. Silly Bandz have become my new best friend. My ensemble is not complete until I find a Silly Band to match my outfit.

*note the Silly Band*

I’m most certainly getting bigger sooner this time around, but for the past several weeks I was impatiently waiting for my belly to bulge out enough for people to stop staring at me with tilted heads thinking to themselves, “Is she pregnant? Or is she just fat?” In a couple of months I will be begging my belly to slow down, but the in-between-belly phase is so frustrating. My non pregnant clothes are too small, and my maternity clothes are too big.

When I would tell people that I was four months pregnant, they would like at me shocked and exclaim, “You don’t look pregnant at all!” I should have felt flattered, but instead I would think to myself, “Great so you had come to the conclusion that I was fat.” I would respond as graciously as I could with, “Thank you. Wait until you see me after dinner. I’ll look pregnant then.” And it was true. I would wake up in the morning looking like my usual self, but by the time I had spent the whole day stuffing my face, I would look six months pregnant (maybe not that big).

This week it finally came. Overnight my belly when from invisible, to “Hello! Look at me!” My belly is finally visible to the naked eye. People are noticing my belly. Just yesterday a friend looked at me and went, “You finally look pregnant!” Later when I walked by my brother, he looked at me and said, “You’re showing!” I had to poke back at him and said, “So are you. How were all those cupcakes you just ate?” He was disgruntle.

There is a downside to my belly revealing its true identity. I can’t sleep on my stomach anymore. I fell asleep on my stomach one night earlier this week, and when I got up the next morning at five something to pee, I felt bruised. Very bruised. When I got up again at seven something, I felt worse. For the first few hours of my day, walking was a chore. The gravity pulling down on my squished belly was too much to take, so I lounged around until late afternoon when I got the urge to clean something.

With tummy time no longer an option for this Mommy, I have found myself waking up in a panic because I’m flat on my back asleep. What if Deuce isn’t getting enough oxygen because my dead-to-the-world self has been asleep on my back for several hours. I sit up, drink a glass of water and lay back down on my left side. An hour later, I wake up because my bladder is about to explode. Then I wake up an hour later because I drank more water before I laid back down. It gets old after the third time, but I remind myself that this is all in preparation for waking up every few hours to nurse and change Deuce. I think of it as preparing for a marathon.

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been wondering if Deuce is tapping on my belly. I think I’m feeling someone in there poking, prodding and exploring, but I still can’t say for sure. It could all be my digestive system making a big ruckus. Pregnant women, after all, have a much more animated digestive system with all of the heartburn, gas and nausea.

I distinctly remember the first time I felt Moanna moving. I was leaning over the desk doing something quick on the computer when I felt a fish out of water flopping around in my belly. It was undeniable. After that free running episode, I didn’t feel Moanna for a few more weeks. At least that’s what I thought until I knew I felt her moving again. The second time I knew I felt her moving, her escapades felt more like gas bubbles working their way through my intestines, only I knew it was her because, well, I just knew. It was then that I realized that some of what I had assumed was digestion was probably Moanna playing tic-tac-toe on my belly.

At night before I fall asleep, I try to will Deuce into moving. I lay perfectly still, breathing very calmly and wait. After a few minutes, I usually feel something inside me moving. Sometimes it feels like tickling bubbles and sometimes it feels like a baseball forms and then immediately dissolves in my stomach. You would think that since this isn’t my first rodeo I would have know without a doubt if that baseball is my baby or my baked potato, but I have no clue. The early movements of Moanna (minus the fish episode) felt very similar to digestion that I have felt in the past three years when I was most certainly not pregnant, so when I feel these subtle movements coming from somewhere inside my body, I  have no idea what I’m feeling. I get even more still and hope for something less subtle. There have been a few times that I have been almost certain Deuce was talking to me, but after that strong movement, things return to the light bubbly feeling that may or may not be gas.

*I’m not so hot at the self portraits. When Steve returns from his travels, the belly pictures will improve.*

Months 3 and 4
Month 2
Month 1
We’re Having a Baby!

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