Confessions of a Pregnant Belly-Rubber

First, I’d like to thank everyone for the continued support and encouragement regarding the health of my baby. It’s something I need to vent about, because I’d explode if I didn’t. To tell you the truth, most of the time I’ve resorted to completely suppressing all my fears about CF by mentally sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling LALALALALAICAN’THEARYOULALALALALA whenever the dark thoughts arise. Not the healthiest way to do things, I realize. Thankfully, those scary thoughts haven’t been as bad lately though because I’ve tried SO HARD to focus on the good stuff that is associated with this pregnancy instead. All this concentration and focus is hard, to be sure, but it’s definitely helping.

I’ll talk about it again when I need to, but in the meantime, I’m going to get off the CF tangent for a while and blog about happier things.

For example:

This past weekend Hubs and I went to a customer sponsored golf outing at the beach. Because my family works together, my sister and brother in law also came, along with their 9 year old daughter. This was thrilling to me, as I rarely get to spend any good “quality time” with said 9 year old. She’s at the age where she is still a child, but I can already sense that the years filled with teenage angst accompanied by a general sense of apathy are just ahead of us. So, like her mother and grandmothers, I am trying to jam in as much time enjoying her during these last few moments of her childhood before she decides that she is way too cool to hang out with the likes of any of us. Or until she starts wearing a training bra. Whichever comes first.

I took her to the pool on Saturday while her parents were playing golf. I was laying on one of the chaise lounges, while she was in the water, hanging off the side and talking to me.

Does your stomach hurt? She asked.

No, why?

You are always holding your belly, like your stomach hurts.

Sure enough, my hands were firmly ensconced around my protruding belly.

I guess I like putting my hands there because I can feel the baby kicking all the time, I told her.

You can FEEL it?

Yeah, it’s cool. Want to come see?

This question was answered by a long, high pitched squeal from her that coincided with a look of bemusement and disgust. I took it as a No.

This conversation got me to thinking: Had I really become one of those belly rubbing women that I used to glare at with contempt every time I saw one of them in line at the bank or perusing the baby goods aisle at the grocery store?

Later on that evening, we had to go to a reception dinner. It was good southern fare: pork bbq, baked beans, hush puppies, corn on the cob, coleslaw, peach cobbler…the works. I was in heaven as I wolfed down two plates of food. Apparently, the baby liked it too, because as soon as I was done eating she started flipping and turning like she was doing some sort of appreciative dance to thank me for the good eats.

I noticed my neice staring at me again. I was a little embarrassed…Did I have food on my face or something? I mean, I was shoveling it in like someone was going to take it away from me.

I asked her What are you looking at?

To which she exclaimed Your napkin! It’s MOVING!

Sure enough, I looked down at my lap, which was covered by a folded cloth napkin and noticed that with each kick the baby made, the napkin convulsed enough that you could actually see it move.

This time, curiosity got the better of my neice. She came over and asked Can I feel?

Of course, I said as I took her hand, and covered it with mine as I placed it on my belly.

As if on cue, the baby gave a good swift kick right behind my belly button and then turned away from us so that you could feel her little bottom push out against our hands.

Her eyes got wide and this time she squealed with excitement and said That is SO COOL!

It is cool, I thought.

For the rest of the weekend, that child couldn’t keep her hands off my belly. Now she touches it every chance she gets.

And so do I. I admit it.