29 whole weeks and I have (had) yet to have any really weird symptoms, late-night calls to the Doctor, or other major freak-outs of any sort. Until last weekend.
Jake and I have practically given up catching up on DVR’d shows in favor of the much more entertaining evening activity of watching my mid-section bounce and jab and flip and turn… all while imagining what our little bundle-o-baby is doing in there (practicing going out for pass patterns?…, ballet recitals?…, math problems?…). But then after several weeks of gloriously fun-to-watch Dance Party 2008 in my tum, Baby Fling decided to take a weekend off.
Of course all you hear when you hit 28 weeks is how important it is to do “fetal kick counts” every day to be sure the baby’s moving enough. So after 2 days of a disturbingly (to me) calm belly, we ended up spending the good portion of a Sunday afternoon in a hospital gown strapped to a fetal monitor, with nothing but red cheeks and a missed Panthers game to show for it (sorry Jake!). As soon as they hooked me up to the monitors the Flinglet started bouncing around and practically knocked off the suction thingys on my belly. Show-off. Must have been all that energy he’d built up after sleeping for 2 straight days! Baby Fling was fine, I was fine, Jake was… well, very sweet and impressively restrained in his teasing considering the situation.
And might I add a little tip here for those of you considering having a similar over-reaction sometime soon?Shave your legs. Yeah… you’d think they could just hike up your shirt and lube up your baby bump to get a read on the little one… kinda like they do at the OB . Oh no. At the hospital they make you get butt neked right when you get there and then give you nothing but a flappy cotton “dress” and socks (The socks have these cool traction lines on them though and are actually pretty great. Jake stuffed 2 extra pair in my purse when they weren’t looking, so we didn’t come away completely empty-handed. Shhhh, don’t tell.)
So I’m curious… did any of you have episodes like this while you were preggo? I feel like it’s so not “me” to over-react like this, but when you know you’re the only person in the world who’s really 100% in tune with what’s going on with this kiddo 100% of the time until he’s out of your bod for the world to enjoy… well, that’s a lot of pressure. Who’s gonna over-react on behalf of my baby if not his mama?!
So share your over-reactions with me and let’s celebrate our well-intended Drama Queen-ness together!
