Let me start by saying that, knock on wood, everything is fine. I've been working a lot lately, because I've got an annual review coming up, and I want to ask for some changes, such as doing some of my work from home. Part of that means dealing with things that I had "back burnered" (mostly because they are not much fun to deal with), so they won't be staring me in the face come review time. It'll be over soon. God knows, I'm looking forward to being more slackerly and more bloggerly. Enough of this overdrive stuff.
Anyway, the kid is still with me and Dad is hanging in there OK. Those are the two key updates.
And as I'm well into my second trimester, I have to say that in some ways, this is starting to feel like a regular old pregnancy. Well, at least part of the time.
Feeling fetal movement has really helped me to break out of the nonstop worryfest. I feel that with each tap or squirm, he is saying "I'm here," and I often respond by saying thank you.
The thing is, at this stage (the first weeks of feeling movement) it is possible to have days when you don't feel that much action. It's happened to me a couple of times (as recently as Sunday/Monday), and even knowing that it's pretty normal, it still brought back that old recurrent miscarriage freak in me. I was on the verge of tears all Mon. morning, even though I was feeling some movement -- just not as much or as big. I guess we get sort of like junkies for the feedback -- the bloodless toilet tissue, the ultrasounds, the dopplers, the kicks -- anything that lets us know that things might be OK.
Anyway, on Monday afternoon he was jabbing at my bladder, as he so likes to do.
I had another mini panic earlier this month when I thought someone was about to cut me off on the highway (which they weren't, actually). It made me think, "Oh my god, what if I'm in a high speed collision, and the airbag goes off, and hits my abdomen, and . . . " It was a horrible moment. But it was brief.
OK, so I'm not I'm not exactly footloose and fancy-free at this point, but my needle isn't constantly pinned on red alert, either. The moments of dread -- although not altogether gone -- are more spaced out and seem to pass more quickly. All it takes is a good swift kick.