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My new favorite photo. Taken in Dubai Children’s Park.
I’ve been having a bit of trouble with uploading photos to flickr due to our poor internet connection. So hopefully they will be uploaded slowly over the next week and I will have time to write and post about our short trip there.
…from Sebastian…inspired by Anthony Browne’s book My Dad.
My Dad, he’s alright. He can work a long day and still come home and help me fall asleep. Sometimes I’m already asleep and he sneaks in to look at me. I know he wants to pick me up for a cuddle. But he waits til morning so I can keep sleeping.
My dad always makes me laugh. He likes to pretend there is something on my shirt and when I look down he gets my nose. It makes him laugh too. He also makes funny noises. I really like it when he sneezes.
My dad is really strong. I love riding on his shoulders. I can almost touch the ceiling! But instead I like to hold on tight to his hair and sometimes I even try to chew it.
My dad always makes me do ‘tummy time’. I don’t like it but I know how much he loves me because it’s really important for me to do it. And every time I get stronger so I can be strong like him when I grow up.
My dad loves music. Sometimes he sings really silly songs and I don’t know what the words mean but my mama asks him to sing something else. He is so cool, my dad. He also likes to dance with me and I laugh a lot when we dance.
My dad is a good teacher. He tells me about the world and sometimes I don’t understand what he’s talking about but I know it’s important and I’m glad he’s telling me.
My dad gives great baths. Bath time is one of my favorite times of the day and my dad always sings songs to me and we splash the water all over the bathroom. He also likes to squirt water in my face. I like that too. It reminds me of swimming under water.
My dad combs my hair after my bath. He always makes it look really cool. Sometimes he spikes it up like a punk rocker and sometimes he combs it back like a greaser. I like looking in the mirror when he combs my hair.
My dad always reads books to me before bedtime. One of our favorites is Hop on Pop. I like the funny words and bright pictures. But mostly I love how my dad reads it to me. He makes me smile.
My dad rubs my back when my tummy hurts. It helps me burp and then my tummy feels better.
My dad plays with my toys with me. His favorite is the xylophone I got for my first birthday. We both like to hit the keys but he plays songs. Someday I hope I can play songs like he can.
I’m so glad he’s my dad. He loves me so much and you know what, I love him too. I always will.
Thanks Dad for being the best dad ever.
Love, Sebastian
This week I was sifting through hundreds of emails in my inbox (dating back to Christmas) and so I’ve been a bit behind in blogging this week. Only now catching up on my favorite blogs, I was pleasantly surprised to be tagged by one of my favorite blogging moms, Bron.
“It’s really simple. I love how every photo tells a story. Some short stories, some long tales. I want to know what is your favourite photo of yourself. Everyone has one. The photo they look at and smile. It reminds them of something, some time, some place. A moment in time. So share the photo, share the story and then tag three other people. I want to see photos and stories all around the blogosphere.“
So I started the task of looking through photos to choose my favorite one of myself. Myself! Can you believe it? Have I had a photo taken of me without my son in my arms since he was born? I don’t know. He is such a huge part of who I am now. Mid-post he roused from slumber although he hadn’t even been asleep an hour so I was able to help him fall back asleep (breastfeeding magic!). As I sat there with him in my arms I began to think about photos of myself that stuck out in my memory. I thought of one from when Ali and I were traveling in Nepal. When I came back to my computer I went to my flickr account and found the Kathmandu, Nepal set. Although I originally had one of Ali and I together in mind, instead I chose this one:
We were sitting in a cafe on Freak Street playing cards and writing in our journals. It was August 29, 2004. We had been backpacking/traveling in SE Asia for a couple of months and were now in Kathmandu. During our stay there were several ‘bandh’ (strikes) in which sometimes we had to stay in our hotel and the streets were quiet; no one dared to go out. The strikes had been ordered by the Maoist insurgency (before they were in government). This was not one of those days and we found our way to the ‘hippie’ haven called Freak Street. When I look at this photo I remember how young and carefree I was. I am smiling at the man I will marry two years later. Did I know this then? Maybe. I’m tanned. Thin. I have my short, bleached blonde, funky hair. I’m wearing the necklace he bought me on an island off Thailand while he was traveling his way up to me from Malaysia, where we had met a month earlier. I am happy. I am living the dream of exploring places I never imagined I’d visit. I have no worries. Only an unmapped future before me. Which I embraced. Which brought me to where I am now. With my family. My beloved husband and son.
Sebastian’s first birthday. I am happy. All that I have experienced to this point has helped prepare me for this life. For this place. For this happiness. For this love.
Tagged:
The week you were born there was a heat wave in London. I watched the sun shine from my hospital bed but I didn’t feel it on my face until I left five days later. Without you. I had entered the hospital with a babe in my belly in the early hours of a Monday morning, the 5th of May. It was my third attempt and this time they let me stay. I had wrapped myself in a sweater to keep warm from the chill in the air. The sun was not shining.
You took a long time to enter our world. You wanted out but we weren’t listening to what you needed. Finally when they cut me your body burst forth and you arrived silently. I waited for a cry that never came. You were pale, gray and maybe even a little blue. I can’t really say because you never made it to my arms. Someone lifted you to the resuscitation table in the room at the foot of the bed. Maybe it was one of the midwives. You were immediately surrounded by people I had not seen before. Doctors were shoving tubes up your nose and down your throat. Someone said meconium. My heart sank.
I tried to see past your daddy so that I could see what they were doing to you. I think he was trying to keep me from seeing. I wanted you to cry. You wouldn’t cry until nearly two weeks later, and then it seemed like you didn’t know how to stop. You came into this world having lost some of your breath on the way out. This meant 16 days in the hospital and a life completely changed. But you came into this world. You came into our world. And you were perfect.
You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Your lips were so full. Your skin so soft. Your eyes so dark. Fingers and toes so tiny. Everything about you was perfect. I wanted to scoop you up into my arms and hold you to my chest. I wanted you to suckle from my breast. I wanted you with me. You had been with me for nine months and now you were sleeping in a plastic box in a room far away from me to make sure you were breathing and that your body would be still. It took three days before I could hold you close to me. And I cried. I cried because I had waited so long for this moment. And I was so afraid I would break you. You with all of these wires. Needles poking into you hands and your feet, keeping the wires in place. Monitoring your heart. Your breath. Your being.
I listened to the doctors tell me about you. I wanted to tell them about you. I learned everything I could. I tried to understand. I wanted to know more. You were mine. I wanted to take you home. I held you to my chest. I rocked you in my arms. You slept in my lap. Over my shoulder. On my chest. As soon as I arrived to see you, you were in my arms until I left, unless your daddy or grandma was nearby. Then we took turns. I held you until you slept and when you woke. The nurses warned me that you wouldn’t be able to sleep without me from my holding you so much. I shut my ears.
Since Sebastian’s birth, I have returned to my birth story several times. Mostly when I’m staring out in front of me while Sebastian sleeps peacefully on my chest. Sometimes in the middle of the night while I sit in the dimly lit living room expressing milk from my breasts for Sebastian to eat in three hours time when he next wakes. I remember step by step leading up until Sebastian entered this world. I feel a roller coaster of emotions when I recall these moments and the moment he took his first breath in the delivery room. But I don’t remember this, the moment he took his first breath. For when he was born, he was not breathing. Sebastian had a ‘traumatic birth’. This is what his medical file says. Traumatic. Trauma. We both experienced it. What does it mean?
We spent Saturday afternoon walking around Kew Gardens. I was already close to a week overdue and wanted to get out and about rather than just sit at home. It was a long day and as I settled into bed that night around 10.30pm, I felt my water break. I was excited at the idea that the time was coming. I didn’t find out until later that since my waters broke I wouldn’t be able to have the water birth I had so hoped for and planned, but it didn’t matter, my baby was getting ready to be born.
We phoned the hospital and they told us to come in. After monitoring the baby’s heartbeat and doing an internal check, the midwife found that I wasn’t dilated and my contractions hadn’t started. They sent us home. In the middle of the night the contractions began. My mom, Ali and I sat up in the living room working through my contractions as my waters continued to flow. We were advised to stay at home as long as possible. We didn’t go back into the hospital until late Sunday night, about 24 hours after my waters had broken. After another internal exam I hadn’t dilated, and according to the midwife, my contractions weren’t strong enough.
The doctor on duty came and prescribed a drug to induce me on Monday morning. I really didn’t want to be induced because after watching The Business of Being Born, I knew that going down that road usually meant a c-section and I wanted to avoid this if possible. I was sharing my thoughts on this with the doctor and he became quite rude, saying that ‘they wouldn’t do the c-section if I didn’t want them too even if that meant my baby would die’. I was appalled that he would say such a thing and my response to him was that I would certainly do what was needed for the safety of my child. At this point I had not been told that there was any need to rush things along. No one told me how long I could go with broken waters before I needed to be induced or why I would need to be, ie. risk of infection, etc. I was given the option to stay the night in the hospital or to go home. I decided to go home as my contractions got worse, I needed the support of Ali and my mom and they wouldn’t be able to stay at the hospital with me as I would be on the ward with other women.
We were up again all night and went in on Monday morning. The induction was scheduled for 8am, so we planned to arrive by then. I asked for another internal check to see if I was dilated enough to avoid induction. I was dilated to three and as my contractions were closer together they decided I was in labour and could be admitted to the ward. I requested the Mother Suite, which is meant to be set up more like home and less like a hospital room. Finally, after taking everything to the hospital three times, each time in a taxi (I’m not even going to go into details about how uncomfortable that was), the hospital said we could stay. We set up the room with my snacks and birthing ball. My mom continued to record each contraction and how far apart they were. Ali continued to support me physically as I leaned on him and breathed through each contraction. It was amazing to feel so normal in between each squeeze which sent pain up my back, through my pelvis and around my belly.
The hours went by, the midwife came and went. Eventually her shift ended and another woman came to take her place. Around 3pm (so about 6-7 hours after being admitted), she did another internal examination only to find that in all of that time I had not dilated any further; I was still at three. I needed to get to ten. They decided they needed to move me to another suite which was equipped to have intervention and that I needed to be put on the syntocin drip which would increase my contractions and also make them more painful, but bring labour further along faster. I knew that once I was put on the drip, the likelihood of my baby being in distress was greater so I also agreed to an epidural. I told the doctor I would do this so that if there was a need for an emergency c-section, I would be ready. Of course everyone knew I wanted a natural birth, but I also wanted them to know that I wanted to be prepared to have an intervention if needed.
The anesthetist came in and administered the epidural. I felt a rush to my head and a strong headache coming on that disappeared once the epidural had been topped up. Each time it was topped up I felt the same sensation, although the anesthetist vehemently denied this could be happening, as if I was making a personal attack on her. She was very rude and seemed put out each time she had to return to help or check on the epidural. This was not just my feeling, but my mom and husband noticed it as well. We did have to call her back a couple of times because although my waist and pelvis region were completely numb, I was still feeling the contractions as well as a strong pain in my right side. I was on my back and unable to move due to the epidural and being hooked up to the monitor which monitored my baby’s heart beat and the contractions. This was so different from where I’d been hours ago, walking and breathing through contractions, sitting on the ball, and feeling the breeze against my face from the open window; but I knew we were getting closer to my baby arriving.
At 10pm I decided not to have another top up with the epidural because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to push since I couldn’t feel anything below my waist. I wanted to feel our baby being born as well as try to use all the techniques I had learned in yoga class for the delivery. At around midnight I wanted to push, but the midwife (now the third one on duty with us) told me I had to wait another hour to start pushing as we were waiting for my baby to drop into the birth canal. I was dilated further, but not enough and the registrar (doctor) came in and requested my syntocin drop be increased to increase the contractions. At one point during this time I vomited all of the ice chips and water I had been sucking/sipping on and the crew had to change me into another dressing gown, which was tricky being hooked up to so many things with cords everywhere. I was exhausted. I had been in labour since Saturday night and it was now Monday night/Tuesday early morning.
The registrar came in at one point towards the end of my labour to ask if I wanted help with a ventouse, I had been imagining this help as I wasn’t sure I could do it on my own, being so exhausted and having been in labour for so long. She offered me this option because I was so tired. I was never once told that I needed to have intervention because my baby was in distress. I was never once told that my baby was in distress and his heart rate had slowed. I decided I would try another twenty minutes to push on my own and then if I was unable to do it, have the intervention.
The doctor came back twenty minutes later and I asked for another five minutes because while she was gone, our baby’s head had crowned and I had been able to reach down and touch it. This encouraged me to keep pushing, which I did with all my might. I never knew something would be so hard. I was being told to hold each breath as I pushed, which was opposite from what I learned in yoga, so it was very confusing. My mom was encouraging me, telling me I could do it: I had climbed mountains, I could do this. Ali was holding my hand the whole time. The midwife was chanting me on. I knew I could do it. We were so close. But time kept going by and I knew our baby needed to get out and I couldn’t do it fast enough. When I asked for the intervention, the doctor was busy with another patient and they had to find another doctor on duty to help.
During that time another midwife came in to assist the one on duty with me. They asked if they could give me an episiotomy. [What was with all this asking? If they needed to do something, why didn't they just tell me and do it? I am not in the medical profession; I don't know what has to be done. I don't know that my baby is in distress because no one is telling me. I don't know the urgency to get him out because no one is telling me. I don't know that we can't wait for the doctor to get there, because no one is telling me.] They cut me after inserting a needle to numb the area and after that I felt a rush of his body come tumbling out after his head. I did not know he was a boy until they lifted him up and all I could see was his tiny penis. ‘It’s a boy!’ Ali exclaimed at the same time. But he wasn’t crying. There was a silence that I was not expecting. They did not place him on my abdomen so he could crawl up to my chest. They did not place him on my chest so he could suckle from my breast. The placed him onto the resuscitation table that you don’t expect to be used. Suddenly the room was filled with doctors and nurses, surrounding him. I looked down. He had passed meconium. I knew this was bad. Generally, if a baby passes meconium before birth, an emergency c-section is given. But we didn’t know that he had passed meconium which meant that he must have passed it as he was coming through the birth canal. I was wavering between the knowledge I had and being in complete shock, unable to react to what was happening.
I watched as they inserted tubes into his nose to extract the meconium he had injested. It was difficult to see around the doctors. Ali told me not to look, but I wanted to see what they were doing to my baby. I remember feeling shock and panic as I continued to listen to the silence. How long had he not been breathing? Was he breathing now? No one was talking to us. No one was telling us what was going on. The midwives were delivering my placenta. I looked down and saw green everywhere, an after effect of the birth with meconium. I wanted to see it to make sure the placenta was a healthy size and colour because sometimes with late term babies it can lose oxygen. To my relief, it appeared to be exactly as it should, providing the correct nutrients for our unborn baby. After the placenta was delivered, I was waiting for my stitches while the doctors continued to stabilize our son. It’s a bit of a blur as everything was happening so fast, I had trouble keeping track with what each person was doing. I just kept praying that he would cry. All I remember is a light shining down on him as the doctors extracted the meconium from his nose, and I think I heard them say something about his lungs. I’m not sure at which point they decided to leave, but it seemed as suddenly as they were there, they were gone. They did not show him to us, they did not tell us what was wrong. They just took him away.
The midwives stitched me up. The doctor came in to see that I had delivered. I know she spoke to me, but I don’t remember what she was saying. I remember just staring at her, wondering why she was there now, thinking she was a little late. She made a reference to my vaginal delivery, that I had done it without intervention. I remember saying that I just wanted to see my son. I later read in my medical records that she said I ‘was happy with myself that I had a vaginal delivery all on my own but I seemed concerned about my son.’ How could she write that? How could she treat so blithely a first-time mother who had been in labour for over three days, having had little to no sleep during this time, congratulating her on something so insignificant when her baby was in NICU, rather then in her arms. Why did she fail to mention that my son had been in distress and I was not told, therefore I did not know the urgency to use intervention? I later wanted to rip her smug smile off of her face.
I wanted to get into the shower to wash off. I wanted to have some sort of normalcy, something tangible that I could do to help me move forward. Because I had just been pregnant for nine months. I had just been in labour for three days. My arms were empty. There was no baby lying in them. There was no crying in the background. My mom helped me into the shower and Ali went down to check on our son, Sebastian, in the NICU.
Sebastian Joseph Sharp was born at 3:05am, 6th May 2008, weighing in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces. We don’t know how long he was because they didn’t measure him. At 6 weeks he was 54cm. Praise God, he didn’t suffer after-effects from ingesting the meconium and all of his organs are healthy. I later read in his medical records that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice. I was never told this. He also had seizures for the first few days after his birth in response to the lack of oxygen during delivery. While long-term effects are as yet unknown he no longer has seizures and continues to grow into a healthy, happy baby.
I couldn’t have done it without Ali and my mom.
Soother, originally uploaded by kara melissa.
I love this picture because I love the way Sebastian is looking at me through the camera. He loves to have his picture taken. He’s also very serious most of the time while checking out the world around him.
As for the soother. Some books say don’t introduce it to your child until after the first month so he doesn’t have nipple confusion with breast feeding, which is not a problem for us (see ‘Breast is Best’ post). Other books say only allow your child to have the soother until month three. Sebastian is two months old now and he only has the soother before eating time for about fifteen to twenty minutes. He’s not interested in it unless he’s also interested in eating. I never planned to use one, but as I’ve been learning, you can’t plan much when having a baby. I was excited when he wanted this one because he rejected others from birth: the hospital was really keen to get him to take one to build his sucking reflex. I’m happy to do this and also to help him slow down with his eating, so as not to upset his tummy. He eats really fast and having the soother before eating allows him to get into a rhythm before taking the bottle.
Due to complications at birth Sebastian has physio every couple of weeks and the occupational therapist said that the soother is a very good way to channel his emotions when he is upset since he tends to tense his arms and legs, tightening those muscles, which is not what we want him to do. It also allows him to hang out in his crib or in his swing with me nearby, rather than holding him, since he prefers to be held the rest of the time. It’s also a good time to do some exercises or read a book. I wish he was interested in the soother more so that he could have that calmness and soothing feeling that most babies achieve from breast feeding often.
That’s all about soothers. I just melt when I look into those baby blue eyes. Mmmmm. Mommy loves you Sebastian! So much.
Happy Father’s Day, originally uploaded by kara melissa.
It’s a little late, but that’s what happens when your life is occupied by a cute newborn like Sebastian. We celebrated with a quiet morning at home. I made Ali his favourite, American style pancakes and in the afternoon we went for a walk in Victoria park. I decided to pick up the camera again — it’s been a bit waylaid with being occupied by my adorable son — and took a photo shoot of father and son. This photo was one of those. For Ali, the best dad ever. We love you and thank you for everything you do for us, which sure is a lot.
For this photo and others, you need to either have a guest pass or flickr account to view. Contact me if you need the guest pass. I’ve made a few photos public, but I’m not keen to plaster Sebastian over the internet, even though he’s the cutest.
I think the biggest thing I have learned from having a baby is to expect the unexpected and that you can’t plan everything. I don’t even know if you can plan anything. I planned a natural water birth and what happened was far from it (I’m currently writing ‘my birth story’, so stay tuned). I planned to breast feed –of course!– and, unfortunately, that’s not happening either. With Sebastian staying in the hospital for over two weeks after he was born, breast feeding became a bit of a challenge, albeit one I rose up to.
Homerton Hospital, where Sebastian was born, encourages breast feeding to the point that it gives minimal support for bottle-formula fed babies, or parents who wish to do so. It’s the complete opposite of what’s happening in the states with bags being given to new mothers filled with formula advertising from different companies. I was happy to know that there would be so much support for breast feeding from the midwives, although I wasn’t worried as my mom would be there to help me. I had envisioned placing him right to my breast after birth. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t first hold him until three days after he was born, and there was no skin to skin contact even then.
Because the hospital encourages breast feeding, they give you a breast pump and show you where the ‘Express Room’ and ‘Milk Kitchen’ are in the Special Care Baby Unit, so that you can express your milk and they can then feed it to your baby through a feeding tube placed in his nose which travels to his stomach. I began immediately. I squeezed. I pumped. I massaged. I did everything to get the milk going, but it wasn’t there. The colostrum hadn’t come in either. I was encouraged by the staff in the unit that it would come, to keep trying. As Sebastian was getting nutrients through drips, he didn’t have milk until a couple days after he was born. Because I couldn’t express anything, he had to have formula as his first milk.
Although it was just a little bit, I felt like a failure. Everyone kept telling me that I had to relax, that stress can also make it more difficult for the milk to come in. It was pretty impossible not to be stressed when I was staying in a post natal ward with other mothers who had their babies in a cot next to them and I had to walk down to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and later the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) to see my baby. It was difficult because I hadn’t held him yet, yet I was expected to produce milk without my babes mouth to help me along. After two days, I was getting tiny drops of colostrum that I could collect with a plastic syringe and take down proudly to the unit and hand it over to be combined with the milk they were giving him. I swelled with pride even at the smallest drop, although I was withering inside from exhaustion, worry and frustration.
Finally, the second time I got to hold him (Day 4), we put him to my breast and he weakly latched on, even if only for a moment. My colustrum came in and after a couple weeks my milk came in. Thus began the routine of epxressing every two hours as much as I could in order to keep up with his hospital feeding schedule. Over time, as his schedule extended, so did mine. We made it to three hours and then four. But as the hours grew, so did the milk needed. I kept up with every feed, except for the middle of the night feeds. By the end of his stay in the hospital, I was only missing one feed and he was able to have breast milk for the rest. Some would say this was an accomplishment, I would say it was my duty.
When we took Sebastian home, he was still on the feeding tube. Our goal was to get the tube out, so we focussed on one form of feeding, the bottle. It seemed this worked better for him because as he became more alert –with the medicine from his hospitalisation wearing off– he was taking less and less to the breast. It was tiresome for him. He didn’t get milk as fast as he got it from the bottle. Much of the hospital staff also thought he didn’t have his sucking reflex fully developed. I found this difficult to believe because I had felt him suck full force. We later found out that he has acid reflux and this contributes to much of his challenges and tears during and after feeding time. Although we really wanted his feeding tube out, once we were home we needed to make sure he was able to eat enough so we went on with feeding him as much as he would take by the bottle and the rest by the tube. He was home for one week when he decided he’d had enough of the tube himself and he pulled it out during an early morning feed. After that, it took just two days to get him eating a full bottle consistently. Victory.
Feeding time is difficult with Sebastian. Sometimes in the morning when he first wakes up, I can entice him with the breast and he eats for about five minutes and then he’s had enough. These times happen often enough to keep me motivated to keep expressing. It’s bloody hard to do what I do. He is eating every three hours, pretty on schedule. I express after each feed to get the next one ready. I was able to get enough for two feeds for awhile, but now that he’s eating more, it’s not possible. This means I’m also expressing in the middle of the night after he eats as well as during the day while he is napping. Makes for one tired Mama. I do have to supplement once in awhile if I haven’t had time or energy to get enough milk, and I do so with HIPP Organic Milk. He doesn’t have an aversion to it, so that makes me feel good. But I also had to accept this myself, it was difficult to accept I had to give him some formula: again with the failure complex. When people are so pro-breastfeeding, they can also be anti-formula/bottle feeding. I think one should never judge because you have no idea the journey they had to take to get where they are.
I don’t know how long I will be able to express full feeds for Sebastian. My job is taking care of him, so I don’t have to worry about other employment getting in the way. I know it’s best to at least breast feed until six months. I’d like to think I can last that long, but I also have to be realistic with myself and what I can physically produce. Sometimes I can get pretty down and frustrated and most of that is due to exhaustion. I’d like to be sleeping when he is but I have to express first. The most difficult times are when I have to hold him and express at the same time. I wish he could understand how easy our lives would be if he would breast feed. It would even be easier for him with his acid reflux. But he doesn’t understand. He just wants to make sure to get the milk the quickest way he knows how. And that’s with the bottle. So this is what we do.
Almost feeding time. He stirs from his afternoon nap.
All Cuddled Up, originally uploaded by kara melissa.
Dear Sebastian,
I love how you yawn; the little squeal that you make as you stretch your mouth as wide as it will go and squint your eyes to let us know you are sleepy. I love how your lips curl up in a smile as you fall asleep against my chest. And of course, I love watching you sleep.
Love,
Mommy
Baby Bump: 25 Weeks, originally uploaded by kara melissa.
It’s been an exciting week for baby bump and me. It has been moving around a lot, but because it’s getting bigger, the space for moving is smaller, so I feel it more and sometimes it’s quite a kick. I absolutely LOVE it. I never realised how cool it would be to feel a growing baby kick around and stretch inside of me. It makes me so happy and I especially enjoy the moments Ali can share in the kicks too, either belly against belly or hands on belly. It has also been moving up a bit more this week, whereas before it was hanging pretty low in my abdomen, just above my pelvic area. It still enjoys a kick about against my bladder at times, but I don’t even mind anymore. So far, this is the best part about being pregnant.
The Pregnancy flickr set keeps growing a little bit at a time, just like us. My students notice my belly and say “Wow, your belly is bigger today.” And I respond with, “It’s not the belly that’s growing, it’s the baby inside. My belly just stretches around it.” They look at me incredulously. One boy from another class responded, “I didn’t know you were having a baby.” I asked if he thought I just ate a lot over the holidays. He said, “I don’t know, I don’t look at your tummy.” And another replied, “I think you just sit on the couch and eat chocolate all day. Ha! HA!” Studies show pregnant women who eat small amounts of chocolate regularly have smiling, happy babies. That’s a study you want to listen to!
What You are Saying