Testing the Fences

Well, here we are at 26 weeks (roughly just past 6 months for those of you who don't think of gestation in weeks) and things are definitely progressing.  The little critter that was haphazardly zipping around my uterus is now making its napa cabbage/baseball mitt/prairie dog size known.  I'm definitely having an "uh oh" moment, as I still have three more months of baby growing to do, and I already feel at max capacity.  Like, lower back aching, feet aching, acid reflux burning max capacity.  And we still have 12 more weeks to grow...pun intended.

What also blows my mind is that this tiny delicate human being that can just barely survive outside my body (with extreme medical intervention, of course) and hasn't even stopped developing yet somehow has the strength and will to stage an intense internal combat with my uterine walls.  It's not gentle or fluttery or sweet.  It's mostly unsettling and occasionally alarming.   Actually the most accurate description I can give is that it feels like there is a very clever miniature velociraptor inside me that is testing the walls of its enclosure for a breach in security.  Sometimes there'll be stealthy little murmurs - quiet patters and sly taps that immediately stop as soon as I register them.  Other times there will be power kicks, clearly aimed with accuracy and intent that make me stop and wonder if my abdominal muscles are strong enough withstand such persistent and precise impact.   And the last, the most terrifying, is when I'm certain that it is bodily throwing itself against my uterus walls, in a howling fiery rage of fury and also, maybe, plotting to hunt and eat a bunch of people who definitely deserved to get hunted and eaten.  And then I shrug and think, "well, at least she's healthy."

For it is a she, we think.  The ultrasound tech told us at our 20 week appointment that we'd most likely be welcoming a sweet little lady in a number of months, and while we are inclined to believe her (she showed us a not very convincing picture of our baby's labia, which honestly could have been her arms or back or my placenta for all Mark and I could tell) I'm still in the camp of Who Knows?  People mistake gender of babies before they're born all the time.  That being said, we have invested quite heavily in baby girl clothes, so whereas I'm trying to be open-minded I'm also trying to positivethink the universe into making it happen.  When I talk to her, because I'm at the point where I do talk and sing and give her little baby massages through my belly, I call her her, and I've been reading Lean In out loud so that she comes into the world feeling empowered and capable, and in the case that she is a boy or gender neutral or transgender or any variation thereof, she'll have a healthy attitude towards female potential.