Somersault

One of the greatest joys of my daily life these past few weeks has been feeling this baby move around inside me. It's incredible and beautiful but surreal and kind of weird at the same time.

When you feel and see a definitive prod from inside your abdomen there's definitely a bit of wrapping the mind around reality that has to go on...as much as I love this little basketball it still just sometimes freaks me out when I realize there's a *person* growing in there. A real live little person.

We sit and marvel at the baby's movements, many of which are still invisible to Hamid but are so obvious for me. Sometimes, the kicks and bounces are so strong I laugh out loud. Imagine being tickled from inside your stomach! We joke that it's something like Aliens (the movie) and I feel guilty - like we're somehow being mean to our little baby with such a crude reference...but it's the truth. The other realization that freaks me out is the one where I really focus on our unmedicated, home birth plan. I'm no Christina Aguilera, scheduling my C so I don't have to feel the pain or stretch out my husband's toys - I'm SO committed to doing this the natural way, but it's still pretty darn scary when you get right down to it; especially once you allow yourself an awareness of the physics of it all. And this baby isn't getting any smaller before our August due date.