So, I’m knocked up. Well and truly. It’s a wanted and planned pregnancy, no issues there. We’ve heard the heartbeat, seen the little creature on the ultrasound screen and I’m swelling up like a lead balloon.
I’m looking forward to arrival of our little bundle, and we’ve bought tons of kindercrap - strollers and babywearing slings and clothes and a new washing machine and all the good stuff.
It will be a summer baby, and I’m looking forward to walking in the park and feeding the ducks and all of that cute stuff. I’m not looking forward to the no-sleep, excrement-fueled screamfest, but hey, you take what you can get.
But it’s all academic. I know we’re having a baby. But the bit where there is an actual living thing inside my body? Not getting it. I know it, but I don’t feel it. Maybe it’ s because it’s been an almost symptom-free pregnancy (I’m boring), or maybe because it hasn’t moved yet… I don’t know.
So…when did the whole thing start to feel real? Will it ever?
Definitely when the movement gets really noticeable. At first, the kicks and rolling feel like gas, but there is definitely a point when that changes, and it becomes very apparent that it’s a baby in there. Or an alien. But probably a baby.
That’s what my Mom said. She knew it was real when she could feel me moving around. As a single mom in the mid 70’s she had considered an abortion, but after she felt me moving she couldn’t do it.
Doper Father chiming in with what’s probably a different perspective…
We did all the same stuff as you. Got the kid’s room ready, bought lots of stuff, she went through her ‘nesting’ phase in the weeks before the baby was due, everything progressed normally. She even had a few false labors.
For ME, when she was actually in labor, it was finally ‘real’ for me when the nurse went and got the little bed situated for the baby and turned on the light/heater over it. That image will be burned in my mind forever. I mean, after all those months and it wasn’t real, like really really real until the kid was about a half an hour away.
I’m wondering that myself. The morning sickness sure didn’t make it feel real. Neither does this (hopefully?) subsidence of morning sickness. Nor did giving in and buying maternity jeans yesterday.
I don’t know that it really settled in until we had her home from the hospital.
Movement didn’t do it for me. Seeing her on the ultrasound was a breakthrough–I didn’t get one until 18 weeks, so she looked like a little baby by then, and I was like, “there’s a BABY in there!”
And then when we took birthing classes we were given a tour of the maternity ward, and when we went past the glass wall of the nursery, I was shocked. There were babies in there. Real ones.
So I’d say the 18-week ultrasound was the moment I realized the factual reality of her. The nursery tour was when I realized the physical reality of her. The day-to-day reality of her, though, came when we took her home, and I couldn’t eat a sandwich or check my email or pee by myself for, like, the first month.
I didn’t even have morning sickness to rely on. Until the midwife put the heartbeat-scan-thingy on me, I was half convinced I had early menopause, or psychosomatic pregnancy, or cancer or womb-gremlins, since literally the only symptom was my periods stopping.
I lost a bunch of weight a while back, so I have a bunch of “Fat Jeans” I hope will last a while. Although I did buy a not-quite maternity denim skirt with an elastic waist, so my maternity clothes cherry is busted. If that plan goes south, I fear I’m a sweatpants kinda girl. Thank god I work in pretty laid-back environment
I think for me it was “real” when I found out that I was having a boy.
Then, I had a tentative name for the baby, I could buy him little blue outfits and really start dreaming about the not-too-distant future when I would have a little son to cuddle and love.
It stopped being “the pregnancy” and became George.
Dude. Seriously. They have these maternity jeans that don’t have that big belly panel, they just have a couple-inches-wide elastic band. Old Navy. Demi panel. Skinny boot cut.
I wish I’d known about these bad boys when I got kind of chubby a couple years ago! SO COMFY. Go buy some right now - they were on sale yesterday. I didn’t realize mine were getting tight until I put these on.
(Trying them on with an actual maternity shirt made me look alarmingly pregnant, though, and I’m only 9 weeks in. Tater’s only an inch long, so I’m afraid that’s all me.)
I kept those after my pregnancy for exactly that reason. Sadly, it turns out that there’s a huge difference between an 8-week-pregnant belly and a not-pregnant belly, and they won’t stay on a not-pregnant belly. Not at all. Boo.
You don’t have to tell me, I remember. Come back and talk to us about those pants at 25 weeks. That’s when I couldn’t bear them anymore and switched to over-the-belly.
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Dude. Seriously. They have these maternity jeans that don’t have that big belly panel, they just have a couple-inches-wide elastic band. Old Navy. Demi panel. Skinny boot cut.
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I’m not being difficult, I just live way the hell out in the country, no maternity stores here. I’d have to order in, and I’m a bit leery of buying clothes untried. I will if get desperate, but I still fit the big jeans. My shape is more or less what it was back when I was fat, I’m not sporting a basketball yet.
[QUOTE=Sattua]
Movement didn’t do it for me. Seeing her on the ultrasound was a breakthrough–I didn’t get one until 18 weeks, so she looked like a little baby by then, and I was like, “there’s a BABY in there!”
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You had movement before 18 weeks? Wow. I’m at 21 and haven’t felt a thing.
The little baby on the ultrasound brought home the “pregnant” bit - that’s when I really started planning and hoping and dreaming. But the “living person inside my body” is still just words.
Oh well. Guess I’ll just wait for the little kicking feet and see if my not-very-maternal brain gets it then.
And I’m nesting like crazy - My friends think I got pregnant just to have an excuse for knitting little baby things.
Anterior placenta? That can stop you from feeling most of the movement. Mine was, too, though a little off to one side. I could feel her when she faced one direction but not any other.
Probably a blessing, as the kicking is less likely to keep you awake at night.
First baby: hearing the heartbeat. And then not hearing the heartbeat at the next appointment and waiting for the ultrasound tech to show up. That was real. And then it turned out fine. He’s 10 now.
So, really, seeing his heart beating made it real.
Second pregnancy: it was fairly early. The line was pretty faint but, within a week, my boobs were killing me and I was sicker than I had been with the first. We never made it to the heartbeat hearing stage with this one.
Second baby: right away. The previous pregnancy ended just a couple months before this pregnancy so I kind of expected it to not work out for a while. Because of that, it wasn’t “oh, I’m pregnant and it’s so great and this is awesome and yay, baby!” real, but “I’m about to be so heartbroken all over again” real, every single day, for like the first five months. That one turned out fine, too. He’s three years old.
Third baby: pretty much when he was born. After the miscarriage and subsequent Way Too Stressful pregnancy, I didn’t even really bother with this one emotionally. I spent more time in the ED and have more images of this one than anybody I know. I was bleeding and cramping for months and my hcg levels weren’t doing what was expected and we didn’t get a chance to hear the heartbeat until I was halfway done and really nothing went normally at all. I resigned myself early on, after my second trip the ER and the first time I was told my hormone levels were going the wrong way, that I wasn’t actually going to have a baby at all and I just had to ride it out until it was over.
There were a whole heap of moments, not just one. For me, feeling movements at around 20 weeks was a huge “Wow, this is really real” moment, and yet I was still looking at other people’s babies a week before she was born and trying to fathom that I would have one of those really soon. Ultrasounds were a really real moment, and so were those kicks that started to be visible externally, and able to be felt by others. Despite everything, it never felt really, truly real until I held her, and even that wasn’t the last time. I still sometimes have mild bursts of “That is my daughter! And I am her mother!”
I had a symptom free first trimester. Not a bit of nausea. Then I couldn’t suck in my stomach anymore. Had a little stomach pooch. Heard the heartbeat, saw the little dancing shrimp in my ultra sounds.
But the reality of it all kicked in when I felt movement in my insides where I had never felt movement before. Much lower than the stomach area and it felt like little bubbles popping or a bunch of butterflies gently flapping their wings. It’s a really delicate sensation when you’re still in your second trimester, but the feeling is undeniable.
Yep, there’s definitely something growing inside me.No doubt about it now.
Good luck to you.
