As of Wednesday, I am twenty weeks along in my pregnancy. Unless you go by the adjusted due date based on the baby's size at our last ultrasound, in which case I was twenty weeks as of Sunday, but I'm going to stick with Wednesday because that's what I've been going with all along. Anyway, supposedly this means I am now halfway through the pregnancy. In reality, since the forty week count starts two weeks before you conceive, I've only really been pregnant for 18 weeks and won't reach the actual halfway point of the pregnancy until next week... And furthermore, since I've only known about it since 4 weeks (2 weeks after conception), I won't reach the halfway point between finding out and giving birth until two weeks from now. And this all assumes that the baby is born on its due date, which it won't be. So in reality, the numbers don't mean much, especially if you're the type of person who likes to be precise and correct, as I am.
I guess the most correct thing to say is that it's been twenty weeks since my last "monthly visitor", and I suppose that is something worthy of celebrating. :)
This week of pregnancy has also brought about a few other changes, namely:
1. I now officially weigh more than my husband.
2. I am now aware that someone is actually swimming around in my abdomen.
I mentioned in my post on September 24 that I kind of "forget" there is a little person in there. Like I'm just getting really bloated for no reason or something. I go in for appointments and hear the heartbeat, or see the ultrasound, and I'm like "Hey what do you know, there's something IN there!" It's as if I've spent most of pregnancy thus far in some sort of disbelief or denial. Maybe setting myself up for disappointment, just in case one day I go in and they say, "You moron, you're just fat. Cut down on the Twinkies." Maybe I have not wanted to get my hopes up too high, in case something happened.
It's funny, I wrote a story in college from the point of view of a pregnant character who was kind of detached from her pregnancy. I never realized I would feel the same way. I'm not sure how I thought I would feel though. I wonder, sort of, if finding out the sex would have made me feel more attached. Then I could refer to the little one as "him" or "her" and call it by name. I'm not sure if that would have made a difference or not, but I'm glad we still have that surprise to look forward to. The little movements are already making it seem more real though; now I can tell there's something in there, even between doctor's appointments!
I don't know what I expected it to feel like. You read descriptions of how the first movements are like "butterflies in the stomach" but that's not how it feels to me at all. It actually kind of feels like gas. :-P Which is probably why it's taken so long for me to figure out when it's actually the baby (and I'm still not always sure). Yesterday baby responded to my drinking some cold water. I even saw my shirt jump a little at one point. I don't know whether Joe would be able to feel it or not; at this point, I only feel a little swish every few minutes, so he'd have to sit there with his hand on my belly for a long time just hoping something would happen. It will be fun when he can feel it too though, I think. :)
Still need to get the ultrasound pics scanned and posted, since I know all two of my readers are dying to see our little Italian baby with its mouth wide open! (Baby's actually only about 1/4 Italian, but I refer to it as the Italian baby because I've been craving sauce and cheese this whole time. Pasta, pizza, you name it, I want it. Yum!)