Belly Dancing??

Here is the video. I did end up using www.youtube.com. Fairly simple and free; and I hope you will all be able to enjoy the video.

The video is about a minute long and most of the activity is in the first 30 seconds. I think it's pretty hilarious to see! It sure is crazy to feel. Brad always gets a kick out of seeing my stomach go into convulsions, even when he's sitting on the other side of the room.

Towards the end the baby calmed down and I tried to coerce it back into motion by pushing on my stomach. All it did was shift position and you can see a bulge to the left of center.

I think this video was taken around 9 pm. The baby seems to have two very active times of day - about 9 am and 9 pm. And I swear I didn't drink any caffiene the day of this video or eat much sugar! Most of the time we find it entertaining, but sometimes I wonder if it's foreshadowing the vigorous activity level our baby will have outside the womb, too.

Well, I hope this isn't like an ultrasound picture where most people look at it and don't see the same thing we see. Hope you can enjoy it like we get to! Let me know what you think!

Video

I took a video with our digital camera of the baby bouncing around inside my tummy. It is so funny to see! But I think it's too big to e-mail or attach here. I don't know how to work much with digital videos...photos I can manage a little bit. Anyone have advice?

3 weeks to EDD

(There are actually two new posts today - this one and the one below. I started writing "thank you" last week but didn't get a chance to finish it until this morning.)
Well, today marks the "three weeks to go" mark...as much as it can at least. Last night Brad and I decided what to name the baby: Hiccups. It works for either a boy or a girl, don't you think? And it's not likely a name that 5 other classmates will share with it. Although nicknames are a little hard - we'll just insist that no one tries to shorten the name to "hickie" or "cups" or "cuppy"...Any one of those is pretty bad. Everyone must use the baby's full name.

Middle names don't work well with it either. Yesterday I was ready to add "the third" in nice majestic looking roman numerals. Hiccups III...even though we really are starting a new tradition here. But after the third bout of hiccups in one day yesterday we were convinced that Hiccups had earned its name. It's kind of like how the native americans named their children, right? "White horse", "Loved by the buffalo", "Inflicted with hiccups". (Sorry if that was un-pc.)

Just kidding. Although, the baby really did have hiccups three times yesterday! Outrageous!

:)

Anyway, three(ish) weeks to go and we're getting ready...as ready as ready can be, I suppose. The nursery is primed with diapers, wipes, burp cloths, some sets of clothes, blankets and sheets which have all been washed (and I dreamt last night that I shrunk the clothes horribly and nothing fit the baby). As we prepare the physical space in our home, the space in our hearts is getting more and more ready to welcome this child into our lives, too. It's amazing to be part of this miracle!

Thank you!

I felt a little vulnerable after clicking "publish post" on the last update, but I'm so glad I didn't delete it, as I had thought of doing. It felt good to really just sit down and think through all my thoughts, and try to make sense of the range of emotions. But I wondered what was going to happen with all those thoughts going out into "cyberspace"...

I am so appreciative of the women in my life! It was wonderful to read your responses or talk to you on the phone and be encouraged and affirmed by you. Thank you for lifting me up with your words to me and I'm sure with some prayers too.

Over the last week I have felt a change in the anticipation. Nervousness is subsiding and I'm becoming increasingly excited to meet this little person who has been sharing my body! I'm eager to discover if it is a boy or a girl and begin to get to know him or her. Sometimes my mind jumps ahead to months down the road or even years and the thoughts of life with a toddler (or teenager) scare me. Then I remember to focus on each day as it comes.

That was something that dawned on me last week after I had written the last post. I was allowing fear of the (distant) future, which at this point is incomprehensible to me, to rob some of the joy of the present and more near experiences. Rather than worrying about what life will be like when this baby starts walking...or talking back to us...I need to take one day at a time. I know it probably sounds really simple, but it came to me like a huge revelation one night!

I think pregnancy is another one of those journeys that God has given me to help me learn to rest in Him and rely on him for strength and comfort. For example, we pray for the health of our baby each day and yet we won't be totally assured until he or she is born. It is so easy to worry but much better to leave it in God's hands...since he's got the full control anyway. I guess motherhood will be another journey like this, learning these truths more and more fully...over and over again.

Approaching The Big Black Hole

Anyone ever approach a huge life-event and find yourself singing "It's the end of the world as we know it..."? I can't tell you what group sings that song (any help here?) but at the end of the that chorus or phrase they do end up singing "and I feel fine".

Well, I once in a while get this tune in my head...but I don't always make it to the "I feel fine" part. The truth is, I don't always feel fine. I think both Brad and I are fluctuating back and forth between the excitement and nervousness of having a baby. Tomorrow is the one-month count down mark! In a sense I can't believe it's already this soon and I'm ready to be done being pregnant. In another sense I don't feel ready to bring home a baby and be a mother for the rest of my life. Good thing we've got about a month to go yet, right?

Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't feel more "giddy" or on cloud nine like some mothers-to-be are at this point. It's not that I don't want the baby or care for it. Goodness knows that's not the case. I think it's more the fear of the unknown and the raw intimidation of the responsibility and life-altering changes that are about to be made. Maybe some women approach the birth of the child unshaken by fear and overwhelmed with joy at welcoming a new life into the world. Maybe others are caught up in how cute babies are and that they finally get to have one of their own.

Perhaps I'm partly grieving, too. That sounds more morose than I intend it to. What I'm trying to say is that I know life is going to change and that as sure as I am that I will love and cherish some of those changes, other changes will involve a loss of some sort and I anticipate that I will miss some of those losses to a certain extent.

So forgive me for not having written much lately. I'm coming to terms with these emotions (rather than feeling guilty for them) and didn't always feel it was something people wanted to read about. And sometimes there was little else to address regarding pregnancy.

I read a horrible book that helped me realize it's Ok for me to feel this way and that I'm probably not alone, although I feel like I am. I say the book is horrible because I don't think I could ever recommend it as a whole to anybody. But there were definetly parts of the book that I appreciated. The author's perspective was that there are a lot of misconceptions and lies about the experience of pregnancy and cultural expecations placed on pregnant women that baracade them from expressing or aknowledging and accepting the truth of their situations (be it marital changes, financial pressures, emotional challenges, career and social status realities and so on). It was a very secular point of view, very pessimistic almost as she shared her horrible personal experiences. She is very hard on the american medical community and their standards as a whole, hard on the american culture's lack of appreciation and recognition for what mothers contribute to society and on the lack of governmental structures to support mothers like many european countries do. Some of what she said was interesting but was left unsupported by any research or way to know she wasn't just sharing an uneducated opinion.

Anyway, I guess I don't need to write a whole book review, beyond what I already have. But what I appreciated was that she approached the idea that because (according to her) american culture typically portrays that pregnancy and childbirth are serene, fairy tale times of life, any emotion other than joy and elation indicates that you are a "bad" women or mother.

So I try to be honest with other people. As a substitute teacher this year I meet many teenage girls who enjoy going through the list of typical questions: When is the baby due? Is it a boy or a girl? Are you excited? - That's when I say "Yes, but sometimes I'm a little freaked out." Occassionaly the girls ask "why?" but most of them respond with this look that says "I've never heard that (or thought that) before, but I guess it makes sense." And I stopped worrying if they were judging me as a bad mother-to-be.

Sometimes I express this same mix of emotions - of course I'm excited but I'm also honestly a little scared - with adult women. I think it shocks most of them. Oh well.

Well, that's enough for tonight. I'm glad I have this place to ponder and reflect a little bit - hope it didn't make you uncomfortable...