Like to Move It Move It

I recently hit the 23 week mark with my pregnancy and all leading up to the second trimester I waited to feel the baby move. Since learning I was pregnant, I've been on alert for any subtle change, any strange or unfamiliar feeling.

The foot that's lately been kicking me.

The thing about being pregnant is that you get stories from people all the time once they learn you are expecting. There are lots of books, magazines, Internet articles - all wealths of knowledge and input on what you should and shouldn't be feeling.  The problem with all of this is that if you've never felt something before then how do you truly know what you are feeling?

I've felt flutters, a quickening feeling, twinges, sharp bursts of not really pain but not comfortable things - and then, just yesterday, two undeniable kicks to the left side of my abdomen. Those happened early in the morning and made me smile. All the other little movements like the things I call drops, which I can best describe as a sensation similar to how your stomach feels when you come down a roller coaster, that sort of quick drop feeling or the twinges and tingles and such - whatever those are can be dismissed. But two quick kicks, that's a movement for real.

Regardless of how much of what I'm feeling is really my baby moving around or me wishing it to be so, I'm also discovering that this experience with Jack in my unique one. Yes, other mothers have felt similar movements, but only I have felt the way Jack moves around. And so only I can describe it. This is my experience alone. Wow. That's strangely a bittersweet realization. There's so much of this I want to share with G, with everyone who is going to love Jack. But with this, the best I can do is try to find the words to explain the feelings. And even then I know I'll fall short.

It's the moments like this, when I'm sitting in a crowded room or all alone, and then I feel him move. That little flutter, quick drop, or the kicks that make me realize how special all of this is. It's still overwhelming in the best possible way.