Movement

I can feel her, pushing and flipping, stretching and kicking. She is reminding me, It's okay, Mom. I'm here and I'm okay. The flutters and pokes are gentle reassurances that she is alive and healthy and growing strong.

I have reached the point that is considered comfortably pregnant, although my definition of "comfortable" must be different than those in the books because I feel like I went from first-trimester nausea and vomiting straight to large and not-so-in-charge.

Still, even with the awkward flipping from side-to-side during the night and the almost constant lower backache, I know that this pregnancy is a gift. One that is worth the fitful sleep and aches and pains.

Adam felt her movement for the first time last week. This is always one of my most favorite moments of pregnancy, when the kicks get strong enough for the daddy to feel too. The girls have yet to feel anything, despite our best efforts to place their hands in the right spot at the exact right time.

It's as if their sister is already playing with and teasing them because as many flips as she's doing, as soon as I beckon the girls over the movement stops. We joke that she's saying, Oh! My big sisters are coming to feel me move? Quick, I'll pretend to be asleep.

The girls giggle and laugh and Hope blows raspberries on my belly to tickle Baby Girl and Paige will have conversations with my belly, making her voice an octave higher when she's being the voice of the baby.

It is sweet, and beautiful. And I am excited for the time the girls catch their sister in the act, letting everyone know the reality of her growing inside me.

I don't want to wish time away, but I can't wait for our Baby Girl to be here. I can't wait to hold her and kiss her and smell her and hear her newborn cries. But until that moment I will cherish the moments I can feel her right now. Each poke and prod a reminder to me that things are as they should be, that she is growing stronger every day.

xoxo, christine