With arms outstretched...

Compartment 14B

Newest Older Contact Me Profile Photos Etsy

Baby stuff and Belly growth.

2005-11-20 - 10:06 p.m.

My God, how did she do it?

J and I have an acquaintance who is not due for more than a full month after us, yet has managed to cobble together a registry with 41 things on it already! Meanwhile, I�ve lost count of the number of times I�ve walked into Sears and Babies �R� Us and scurried out, totally intimidated, without adding a single thing. It�s a wonder I�ve even managed to start a registry anywhere but even I know that we needed things like a car seat and a thermometer. My www.babiesrus.ca registry under last name �Talpidae� was actually the easiest because it�s got only place I let myself put anything fun like toys � the other �serious� registries are full of practical stuff that was much more stressful to pick out. What kind of monitor will I actually be able to hear Grommet through? What kind of tub won�t let him drown? What kind of nail scissors won�t cut off the tips of her precious little fingers? How the %$@# should I know?

I�m deeply suspicious of those lists of essentials that the registry people give me. Seems to me they have a vested interest in padding those things. For instance, one insists that I need a �vapourizer� and I�m not convinced that this is a �must have.� Maybe I�ll cheat and print the acquaintance�s registry to get some ideas.

In other news, you know how I mentioned that my belly was sore under my navel, right in the middle? What I didn�t mention was that after we�d walked home from prenatal class (and more on that later) Thursday, we were sitting on the couch and I lifted up my shirt to look fondly down at the Belly (as, I confess, I often do), only to find that my belly button had changed shape in the previous few hours and was kind of caved in on one side only. It�s since gone back to a more symmetrical look, but it turns out both things were symptoms of something going on. I didn�t consciously notice it until one of the participants in my class at the gym told me �your belly�s dropped since last week,� and, lo and behold, they were right!

I�ve gone from a sort-of barrel shape to a slightly more pear shape in the last week. I know it�s too early for Grommet to start �dropping� in the sense of �engaging in the pelvis prior to birth�, but maybe my abs had reached their limit and were forced to stretch out a bit. The good thing about this is that I seem to have more room just under my rib cage and no longer feel like my liver and various other internal organs are being squished upwards as much as they were. By the end of the day I�d started to get heartburn and feel like I�d be stuffed into a sausage casing, unable to bend from my hips to my shoulders. The downside is that there�s definitely more weight resting on my bladder and my usually-jaunty walk bounces that weight uncomfortably up and down.

I�d always pictured Belly growth during pregnancy like the slow-but-steady inflating of a balloon, but I wonder if this is the way it normally goes: Belly grows upwards for a bit; Belly shifts outwards and downwards; Belly grows upwards again.

Guess I�ll find out more about it in the next 11 � weeks!

Before - After


All content � Shawna 2003-2010
That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking.

P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters.

recommend me
HTML and design help by Jo
hosted by Diaryland