Turn your right hand palm up
You know, I wonder if these leetle tiny pains that spark all over my uterine region intermittently the last few days are the baby moving. It’s like being kneaded by cat claws, through several layers of fabric.
You know, I wonder if these leetle tiny pains that spark all over my uterine region intermittently the last few days are the baby moving. It’s like being kneaded by cat claws, through several layers of fabric.
Chrysoula, 
Tamago, 
Michelle 9:50 am on April 4, 2007 Permalink
I’ve heard/read that it feels like gas moving through your intestines.
That could also be growing/stretching pains in the uterus/ligaments.
Amy 12:59 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
I’d vote those as either uterine stretching or ligament pain, although everyone’s different. Movement definitely felt like gas first, to me, and I have heard that’s pretty common.
Chrysoula 2:04 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
See, I figured (and the doctor agreed) that the mild menstrual-style cramps were the ligaments stretching.
I’ve heard comparisons to both gas and hunger pains, and in my experience, gas moving about internally is always a little painful? In any case, there’s also some swishing that is more like what I expected, it’s true. It’s just the little tiny pinpricks also move around.
Originally I actually wondered if it was bits of the baby’s anatomy falling asleep due to my weird positioning. That is, blood supply being cut off. But then I had to remind myself that I don’t have any nerves stretching inside the baby.
Then I spent some time thinking about chest-bursters, and if those little claws on the inside were what those poor movie people felt. But chest-bursters are higher up, and this is hardly painful at all, dancing across the irritating line between ticklish and ow. Yes, it was five am at the time, the night before last.
Finally, last night, it occurred to me: maybe it was the baby itself, punching me when I was crowding her space. And oh look, I’ve started using the female pronoun. If this were Lost, that’d mean she was a girl.
Michelle 2:13 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
The page I was looking at said that the ligament stretching could feel like a few different things: cramps, pinpricks, generalized pain, soreness, and stuff like that.
I’m not saying it can’t be the baby, just that it might not be (mostly, I don’t recall hearing baby-movement described as a painful experience at first (even though gas can be), just weird and uncomfortable which may be more what you mean). You are at about the right time for it. One place says it starts between 16 and 22 weeks and usually about the 18th week when it’s your first pregnancy.
Stacy 3:55 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
Thinking back, Asher’s first movements felt like bubbles or butterflies. Looking at my pregancy journal, I described them as “fluttering.”
But, I think it’s different for everyone! You might well be feeling the baby.
As for the gender pronoun, I’m sad to report that I used “she” for Asher for a long time. My only real pregnancy dream also featured a girl. Oh, well. It would be fun to go shopping for girl things for you, so I hope you’re right!
Chrysoula 4:30 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
Yeah, I’m trying not to have too much in the way of hopes and expectations on the gender. It’s an utter failure, of course, between Kevin teasing me about how much he dislikes little boys, and knowing that a number of my friends have hoped for/thought they had girls. Part of me says, ‘come on, the four moms you’re most familiar with have had boys, it’s time for a girl’, but sadly I know that 50-50 chances just don’t work that way. Plus I hoped my brother would be a girl when I was a teenager and he wasn’t… that was disappointing, believe me. I was all ready at age 14 to have an infant sister. I daydreamed about dressing her up and shopping with her…
Anyhow, about the only counterpoint I can offer myself is ‘maybe global warming is making more boys be born’. Or maybe it’s the ray beams from the computers. Or… or…
Honestly, when I was a kid, I never daydreamed about marriage, but I did often daydream/expect that I would have a daughter. So I’m utterly doomed and the only thing that will save me from disappointment is my brother, who turned out to be pretty worthwhile despite never being an adorable little girl.
After excessive browbeating from me, Kevin has revised his story to ‘happy with anything healthy, no matter what the gender’.
I will say, up until last night, I was being pretty neutral in my gender assignment. I think I actually used ‘it’ more than anything else, and if I did think about gender it was ‘probably a boy’. It didn’t really feel like a girl kicking my ass unil this morning.
Well, we’ll find out in 2 weeks or so, hopefully. I will almost certainly be so relieved to get a ‘everything is fine’ pronouncement that gender will just be icing. I mean, I have fears about all sorts of things, especially given the last appt. when the baby was hiding so well I didn’t get to hear a heartbeat.
The biggest thing I think the gender assignment means is that I’ve had an ‘oh shit, baby person’ moment. Maybe this means I’ll finally get past the ‘so they tell me’ response to Kevin saying ‘you have a baby in there!’. Which is probably good!
kevin 4:33 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
It’s funnier if I talk about selling boys to gypsies.
Cathy 6:03 pm on April 4, 2007 Permalink
We offered Kevin to gypsies and they wouldn’t take him, so don’t get your hopes up.
Tamago 6:40 pm on April 6, 2007 Permalink
Selfishly, I hope you’re having a boy. Then I have someone to send all Matteo’s hand-me-downs to.
Heck, if you don’t mind blue things on girls, I’ll probably send you stuff anyway.
Chrysoula 6:43 pm on April 6, 2007 Permalink
I absolutely don’t mind blue stuff. I suspect I’d get an irritated kick out of messing with people’s gender expectations. Plus, well, blue is one of my favorite colors. Yay handmedowns!