What's he doing in there? And other in utero musings.

They say that a baby in utero sleeps 90% of the time.  I don't think this is true for my little one.  I feel him jabbing me and rolling over all day long and into the night.  I wonder if he's uncomfortable and can't get into a comfy position because I have such a short torso.  I was actually born with one very pigeon toed foot because my legs were squashed and I was born small, 2 months early!  I hope my little guy has enough room to stretch out a little bit!

Sometimes I feel him jabbing my cervix, other times kicking my ribs.  And all the time I feel little tickles on my right side.  Everything is always on the right side.  Very often I see a big rounded hard spot (probably a tooshie) taking over the middle/right part of my bump.

Which makes me wonder, what position is this baby in?  Does he really have enough room to keep switching from breech to head down at this point?  Whenever I press on the hard spot or the ticklish spot, I can feel him push back and then swim away. Maybe he has really long arms...or long fingers like all the Hwang girls.  Hmmm....or active little feet like mine.  At night before I go to bed, or when I'm relaxing on the couch, I am constantly rubbing my feet together, unconsciously.  My mom says I did this as a baby and she always laughs when she sees me doing it now as an adult. 

Also, I've started wondering if all this activity means that he's going to be a really active or fussy infant.  Or a hyperactive toddler/child like I was.

So of course I googled it, and this is what I found.  EEEP!!

In the first formal study of fetal temperament in 1996, DiPietro and her colleagues recorded the heart rate and movements of 31 fetuses six times before birth and compared them to readings taken twice after birth. (They've since extended their study to include 100 more fetuses.) Their findings: fetuses that are very active in the womb tend to be more irritable infants. Those with irregular sleep/wake patterns in the womb sleep more poorly as young infants. 

Awww, hells to the no! Please don't let this be true.  If he takes after his father in terms of his erratic sleep pattern, we are so screwed!  Although the upside is that V never suffers from real insomnia and never has trouble falling asleep.  He goes to sleep when he feels tired no matter what time, and stays asleep like a champ for at least 7 hours.

I wonder if I'll learn to breastfeed while sleeping.  That way V, who will likely already be awake, can just hook him up to my boobie while I catch some zzz's.  Heh.  If only it were that easy...

I've also been thinking a lot about what he's going to look like.  I could spend hours imagining his little face!  The other night, I had a dream that I gave birth and his face was the perfect combination of me and V.  But he was like...20 years old!  With a little infant body but a young man's face.  SO CREEPY!  But it was a relief that he was pretty good looking.  I'm even superficial in my dreams!  Hehe.

Chasing sleep

I'm a zombie today.

V got home yesterday at 4 am after a 16-hour gig, and although he wasn't terribly loud, I ended up waking up and pretty much staying up.

I used to be a champion sleeper.  I've slept through natural disasters - tornadoes, hurricanes, thunderstorms - you name it!  When I was little, my mom wasn't one of those moms that kept me on a real schedule so when I got tired, I'd just take random naps wherever I was.  Sometimes, she'd find me under the dining room table.

But I think last night might be a foreshadowing of how my nights are going to be for the rest of this pregnancy.  (And I'm sure after the baby's born I'll be pining for nights like that!)  Anyway, I'm getting a little bit achy, and yesterday I think I had my first Braxton Hicks contraction, so that kind of freaked me out.  But most of all, the bubs would NOT stop tumbling around in there! It's like he's rehearsing for his "So You Think You Can Dance" audition.

Which brings me to two of my favorite routines from that show.

On Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 16 weeks

We had our first anatomy scan and found out....

We're having a BOY!

Look at his little bits!  Or rather, very large bits!

This ultrasound was so fun.  We could see all sorts of stuff.  The bubs was moving a ton and they checked out his limbs and fingers and toes, made sure his facial bones had fused properly, checked for all his organs.  The only thing was that because of the position he was in, they couldn't see his heart very well, so we were told to come back in a month, at 20 weeks.

We even got to see the little guy on the 3D ultrasound machine.

He totally has his father's body here.  Tiny little twigs for legs and a substantial mid-section.  Hee hee.

Toward the end of this week, I also felt the bubs move for the first time.  I couldn't believe it!  They say that usually you won't feel anything until around 18 weeks, but I definitely felt the little flutters at the end of the 16th week, which watching TV in the evening.  He hasn't stopped moving since!