A no-show

So many punny title options for this one, my head nearly exploded. It took a lot of restraint to scale it back to this one. I suppose it’s the rare woman who is totally happy with her body at any given point—but I’d venture to say that having too small of a belly rarely makes it to the top 10 complaints list. Unless of course you’re 16 weeks pregnant with next to nothing to show for it.

I’ll be the first to admit that this falls into the “good problem to have” category. I haven’t had to change a single thing in terms of wardrobe yet, and having done some preliminary browsing, I’m not all that eager to start shopping the maternity sections. Plus, it’s nice not walking around like a billboard for procreation, inviting all the borderline offensive commentary, labour horror stories and unsolicited advice that I’ve heard is (eventually) coming my way.

But I can’t really feel anything either, and therein lies the problem. When you can’t feel the baby and you can’t see the baby, it’s really easy to let your head get away from you. I’m also midway between prenatal appointments right now, so it’s standard practice for me to start doubting that all is still well in there. I’ve found that the reassurance of a Doppler stethoscope or ultrasound only lasts a couple of weeks before it wears off. For that reason, I’m anxious to start having some tangible proof of life.

For the last 2 weeks or so I’ve occasionally felt some weird flutterings, almost like vibrations, inside and down low. So far, it only happens if I’m lying on my back at night, being very still—but it doesn’t happen every time I do this. Sometimes Twitchy tries to help by stepping on the baby and kneading his paws on top of it, so if the kid has a phobia of being crushed by sturdy cats, it won’t be without good reason. From what I gather, these flutterings can be the start of being able to really feel the baby move – which apparently happens somewhere between 15 and 25 weeks for a first pregnancy.

Mostly I’ve just felt bloated for months, and I’m juuust starting to get to the point where I’d rather leave the buttons undone on certain pairs of jeans. Needing to do something – to take action of some concrete nature – I ordered 2 of these:

I have decided that this is the way forward—as online shopping so often is. The training wheels I need before I will be ready (physically and mentally) to dive into the full-on, over the belly, stretchy, high-waisted maternity jeans that haunt the corners of my dreams. These and leggings, which I can see a lot of in my future. By the way, wtf are maternity leggings? Aren’t those just called bigger leggings? I feel that maternity is a marketing word much like “bridal” in that using it to preface anything can make the product seem like a necessity and allow you to charge 30% more for it.