Lots of thoughts swirling around about lots of things these days. Mostly on how this whole process is a bit strange, and it makes someone like me feel more than a bit awkward sometimes. Like, people ask to touch you when you're pregnant. Why? They want to feel your belly. You didn't have permission to feel my belly when there wasn't a creature growing in it. Why do you think I'm giving it to you now? I suddenly feel like one of those chubby Buddha statues that people want to rub for luck. It's so weird. It's not even like I have much of a belly to rub anyway. I'm still sitting over here, hanging out in my regular clothes. I'm not sure why people want to man handle my not-that-large belly. And it's not like there's a super polite way to say "Stop asking to touch me, it's not going to happen". It just makes me feel awkward.
People also keep buying us stuff. This is very sweet, don't misunderstand. It's so nice that people want to buy us baby gifts, but I'm so awkward about accepting gifts, especially when it's not a specific gift-giving occasion. Birthday and Christmas gifts are far less uncomfortable for me. Just random, out of the blue, I got this for you gifts? Those make me feel weird when accepting them because I always feel like I should be offering up a gift too or something. So far most of our gifts have been clothing, which is always useful. Cute things like PJs and socks. One friend bought us an adorable sweater, which I love because it's the first non-pink article of clothing we've received and I have nightmares of my home turning into a giant Pepto-Bismol pink nightmare so it's nice to get something in another color. Then there was the person who bought me a maternity shirt, and that made me uncomfortable. To begin with, this is a family member I'm not exactly comfortable with receiving gifts from in the first place, because it's always awkwardly given and I have some personal hangups about somehow being seen as "owing" this person anything later for whatever I've received. Beyond that, she bought me a maternity shirt. I mean, really? I get it, she's trying to be helpful, buy something for me that I might need, but clothing like that is a bit personal because it sends a couple of messages. First is "You're looking pretty fat, better wear this", which I get is more about the baby getting bigger than it is about me being fat, but there is a certain degree of self-consciousness that comes along with hearing about having gained weight, and losing a bit of your waistline, and although I'm still able to wear all of my regular clothes even now at five and a half months into this process, I don't really love when people point out that I look "bigger". So, maternity shirt sort of does that. The second message it sends is that perhaps you don't realize you're kind of big now, and someone needs to buy you a shirt as a hint. Again, I don't think this is the case with me, and I don't think that was this person's motivation, but your brain sort of goes there still and you find yourself standing there awkwardly accepting your fat-chick gift.
On the subject of gifts, and receiving several pink outfits (and being guilty of buying one ourselves), I sort of hate this whole "pink for girls" thing. Not that I have a problem with pink. I don't. I just sort of hate the immediate assignment of a gender role that comes from it. Do I sit around and look at adorable dresses online on occasion? Yes. Do I worry that I'm already assigning a gender role that my kid might not want or be able to accept? Yes. It's a slippery slope. My husband takes a very "If you think something is cute, buy it" approach to baby clothes, because he feels like the kid is basically a ball of putty for the first couple of years and can't form opinions on what they like or don't like, so if I find a t-shirt with puppies on it in the boys section but I think it's cute, he figures we should just buy it and put it on her, because she won't care either way. I like that approach, but it's hard to keep friends and relatives from turning your whole life pink. We have, partially, decided to paint her room aqua. Mostly because I can't stand the idea of a big pink room, and until she's old enough to tell me she wants it to be pink, I'm avoiding it. I like the idea of just mixing a bunch of pastel colors together. Aqua, lavenders, yellows, and perhaps a hint of pink here or there, but definitely not the focus color. Of course, immediately when I said aqua, my mother replied with "You know it's a girl right? Blue is for boys". WHY DOES BLUE HAVE TO BE FOR BOYS?! I just don't get it. I'm sure she's not going to give a crap. Gender roles get so weird.
Also, she moves around now. Like, she moved around before, but now I can feel it sometimes. I guess I have a situation where the placenta is in an anterior position, so it's sandwiched between my abdominal wall and the baby, which means that whole early movement thing didn't happen for me. I kept reading about how you're supposed to feel it move as early as 16 weeks and I just sat there feeling nothing. Given my constant concern that something was going to go wrong, that was frustrating. When we went in for our ultrasound, they said the placenta was in the way and that was part of the problem. Basically, even now, I can only feel her when she's got some serious kicking around going on. Sometimes you can feel it on the outside, but it's very light. My husband tried and kept saying "Ok was that my pulse in my hand or movement?" and I had to point it out to him when she'd move so he could tell the difference. I'm not sure if feeling movement is more or less nerve wracking. It's good to know she's in there doing her thing. It's also a little stressful when one week, it seems like you feel it quite a lot, and then the next you are pretty sure she's hardly doing anything and you start to wonder if something is wrong. So far I've convinced myself that it all depends on where she's positioned when she's flailing. I figure if I feel her doing something at least a couple of times a day, it's probably fine. But this whole process is full of so many unknowns that it's sometimes hard to not be a paranoid freak. At least she doesn't keep me awake at night with kicking around. I'll take that for as long as I can get it.
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