Halfway / The Quickening(?)

It feels unreal for me to already be halfway through this pregnancy. How did that happen? So far I've seen the midwife once and had the ultrasound. It will be another month before I start having regular appointments. And the pregnancy just goes along happening.

Overall pregnancy is very weird. I guess I've probably given most people the impression that I've just gone on feeling like my normal human self most of the time. Which has not really been fully honest. I think I've felt like a normal pregnant human, but that is a different thing from the human I used to be. And it just keeps changing. It is like I get a body of a new person every week. By the end of the week when I'm starting to figure out how that person's body works, then I get a new one to start over with. Some of the bodies are similar to what I'm used to, some are quite dissimilar, and there seems to be no pattern for how they occur. All I know is this week's body could happily live on tomato sandwiches.

Oh, and I stumbled across this super image, further proof of the weirdness of pregnancy. Move it or lose it organs.

Moving along with no segue…

At the beginning of this pregnancy I learned about a thing called The Quickening. So I've been waiting for that. Except that maybe it already happened? I assumed it would be one specific event, but I'm starting to be more and more convinced that the movement I feel is actually our baby. Especially now that I know all my organs are clearing out, what else could it be? Perhaps the quickening marks the time at which you are sure about what you are feeling, regardless of any former suspicions? Perhaps there is still time to let the town know a celebration is impending?

And a [week-old] photo [that I surprisingly don't hate] for posterity.

It's a baby!

Sometimes you go for so long not talking widely about a thing that it makes it sort of hard to start talking about that thing. We had been slowly disseminating the news that we are going to be having a baby, but then we went for our ultrasound and suddenly it seems necessary for everyone to know about this great thing. It doesn't even matter that I know ultrasound images are completely uninteresting to most people. My baby's ultrasound image is the best ever, so of course everyone needs to see it(:

This image is from Thursday, when our baby was 18 cm long and weighed 200 grams. Well done, baby. We were really happy to find out that everything looked good. We aren't going to find out the sex of our baby until it is born, and I hope it doesn't confuse anyone when I alternately refer to our baby as he, she, or it. I only do it with love.

We had a great ultrasound technician, but I did not know that if your baby is stubbornly refusing to turn the right direction for measurements, the technician will (somewhat vigorously) shake around your belly with her ultrasound wand. Makes you feel really good about how jiggly you were already feeling…

A more enjoyable part of the experience was hearing about the "ability" cord. This woman's English was way better than my Swedish, so it only makes me wonder if I've been saying anything as ridiculously cute. In general, it seems that pregnancy-related words are much more sensical in Swedish. For example, the amniotic fluid is called "fetus water". So simple. So of course it should be an ability cord. Umbilical is a completely nonsensical word.