Week 19 – Umm… Movement?
May 22, 2006
I think I felt the baby move this week. I think probably every mother can come up with some different way to describe the feeling. The baby center says that most women say it feels like “popcorn popping, a goldfish swimming around or butterflies fluttering.” I say it feels like someone lightly tapping on your organs. Regardless of the weird feeling, during pregnancy I have noticed a multitude of weird feelings – from increased pressure on my bladder to my “round ligaments” stretching. So, when I felt that first kick my initial thought was, that can’t be a kick, it must be some other weird pregnancy feeling. Of course, it was only one kick, so it wasn’t like I could confirm my suspicions at that point. Since then, I have felt several kicks, and I have no other explanation. It must be movement, and generally my baby likes to kick (or punch, I’m not really sure) my lower organs. I don’t know if the kid is already knocking on the door, ready to come out, or if he/she is just trying to stretch and make more room for him/herself in there. Either way, it is always a weird feeling, and continues to give me a jolt every time I feel it. Unfortunately, since the movements tend to be inwards and not near any outer walls, I haven’t been able to let Zach feel it yet. I did tell him that if I ever figured out how to recreate the feeling, I would certainly be happy to give him a little internal punch in the stomach (hehe).
baby, baby movement, fetal movement, fluttering, movement, pregnancy, quickening
So this week was the big moment – the sonogram. A few mothers has mentioned that it was somewhat uncomfortable – having a full bladder while someone is pressing on your stomach. I didn’t really give it much thought until the morning when I started sucking down my liter of water. I had to drink 1 liter between 9:30 and 10:00 am, which I did. At 10:02, I needed to pee. Of course, the sonogram wasn’t scheduled for 11:00 am, so I had a while to wait. By the time I got to the radiology waiting room, I was doing the pee-pee dance. When the technician (Toni) finally called me in, I explained that I was pretty certain my bladder was going to explode any minute. Toni let me take out 5 plastic cups full of urine (not an easy task!) I made it through about half the procedure (which ended up taking almost 2 hours!) before my bladder was full again. Toni let me take out another 5 plastic cups of urine (even harder to stop the second time around). The reason I was in there so long was that Toni, and then the doctor on call (Dr. Trent) were unable to catch a picture of all four chambers of the heart – they could get two and two, but not all four. Toni suspects that I will be back again in a few weeks for another try. Since the best they could give us was “maybe a girl?” I guess I won’t complain too much if we have to go back, but I’m not looking forward to filling up my bladder again!
Everyone says to get your travel out of the way before you have kids, because after you’re a parent, your footloose, fancy free days are gone. So, my last who-rah was a cruise around the caribbean while I was 17/18 weeks pregnant. A good idea in theory, but somewhat depressing when you’re watching everyone else guzzle their free rum, and you’re sitting around wondering whether or not the fruit juice has alcohol in it. 
