Taut, Like a Drum

So, for those of you wondering what a five-months-pregnant belly looks and feels like, let me try to describe mine for you.

For starters, I'd say its radius, if I may use a mathematical term without knowing for sure whether I'm using it correctly, is about four to five inches. In other words, my belly sticks out that many inches from my body. When I look down in the shower, I can't see my lady parts. I can still, thankfully, see my knees.

It's very round. Not quite round enough that any stranger on the street would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's a fetus in there as opposed to, say, several thick insulating layers of fat (although there is some of that, too), but still, quite round indeed. I think it's the roundness that lends a degree of cuteness to the pregnant belly. Round, roly-poly things are sort of cute, generally speaking. (Hello Kitty's head comes to mind.)

My navel has not popped out, exactly. But it's shallower than normal, and flatter. Not quite flush with the rest of my abdomen, but getting there. This was sort of fun to watch until the skin around my navel ring began to get red and irritated. Now I'm worried and want the ring removed, but I don't know how to do that. (It's the bar kind with a jewel on one end.) I'll ask the doctor about it when I see him in a week and a half. (What will remain when the ring is removed, though? Holes? That's weird. I've read you can insert a bit of fishing line where the ring used to be, to keep the holes open. That's not a bad idea. Not that I have any fishing line handy, and not that I would relish threading it through my flesh if I did.)

The funniest part of the five-months-pregnant belly is the tautness. Taut like a drum, I'd say. S finds this amusing, as do I. Also kind of reassuring, because it proves there's a big old uterus in there, expanding as it should. (By the end of pregnancy, I read, the uterus has grown so huge that it butts up against the rib cage. Whoa.) It does make bending over difficult, however. And you should see the sorry state of these pants I have on today. They're my old, regular pants, from like, twelve pounds ago or whatever. They are SO STRAINING. They're like, gasping for breath. Sweating from the effort of staying buttoned, practically. And they are so freaking tight around my butt (which is totally bootylicious and shelf-like now, I might add) that they're almost obscene. I've been keeping my coat on all day to cover it. Oh! That's another thing: My coats and jackets don't zip up now. That's one mild bummer about being preggers in the winter: I guess you have to go buy new coats! And coats aren't cheap, of course.

So, that's the Belly Report. I got a BabyCenter.com update yesterday in my e-mail that starts with, "You're 19 weeks pregnant! Think you're big now? Wait till you see how fast you grow over the next several weeks!" And really, I almost soiled my drawers reading that, because YIKES. I mean, how will my belly skin accommodate all the added poundage that's to come? How much farther out can my butt travel? Will the girth of my thighs increase threefold?

??

Ah, well. As far as I know, all seems OK with Baby of M at this point, so that's the important thing! (Of course, I'm still waiting on blood-test results that were supposedly ready on Monday...)

Let's Do the Time Warp

Have you ever been suddenly, unexpectedly presented with a bit of information about someone you went to high school with a zillion years ago (or maybe just twelve), and it sort of snaps you back to your teenaged self for a moment and gets your mind thinking about things it doesn't normally spend much time on, like your past and your future and the life you've created for yourself and the nature of time and aging?

That happened to me this morning. I was sitting here in my cube editing, as we editors are wont to do, still kind of stewing over the fact that S and I had just been closed out of an apartment we'd visited last night and liked, but which we found out this morning doesn't take cats, despite the property manager's original claim that it did. I was also contemplating what I might have for lunch. That type of thing. Coworker A appeared in my cube with a Sports Illustrated clipping being circulated by Coworker J, about misspellings of player and team names on sports jerseys. It was an amusing if ridiculous little article, and I was getting a good chuckle out of the player whose Anaheim Angels jersey said "Angees" by mistake but who wore it anyway, and by the guy whose last name was Smith---spelled "Smiht" on his jersey.

Then, I came to the bit about Jon Busch, a professional soccer player for a team called Columbus Crew (presumably in Ohio). Both his first and last names have been repeatedly misspelled on his jerseys, and he's quoted as saying something like, "By this time, you'd think they’d get it right." And then it clicked: Jon Busch. Star goalkeeper for my high school soccer team. Always really tan, with spiky brown hair, arrogant but friendly, worshipped by all for his phenomenal athletic talent. I googled him, and sure enough, it was him. (Also turns out he was born precisely one year and one day after I was. Kind of funny.)

I barely recognized him in his current photo. He looked...well...old. Older, anyway. And not as good-looking as I'd remembered, frankly. (I guess even big-time professional athletes lose their youthful cuteness over time.) But it was definitely him, and his biographical stats confirmed it.

That sent me into the aforementioned timewarp-mindspin. Thinking about Jon got me thinking about high-school soccer games, and my high school's soccer fields, set on a few lovely, green, rural acres. Sometimes my cheerleading practices were held on those fields, or near them. It got me thinking back on my high school's soccer program, which was quite good, versus my high school's football program, which was quite sucky. That got me thinking about Friday night football games, under the lights, with tons of people I knew in the stands. And then I got to thinking about being young, and full of energy, and relatively carefree, and all of that. The world was so much smaller back then, wasn't it?

I felt a slight pang of envy that this guy Jon is doing what he loves for a living, as I always do when I hear of the successes of former friends or acquaintances. But mostly I felt inspired, and sort of weirdly energized. It's nice to know that not everyone winds up hunched over a computer in a cubicle five days a week to earn a paycheck. And I always feel refreshed when I learn of people who are, in some way or another, pursuing something they love. It pulls me out of myself and my immediate concerns for a bit and helps me gain a broader perspective on life in general.

So anyway, here's a little shout-out to Jon Busch of the Columbus Crew. Congrats, dude.

I’m Not an Ungrateful Jerk

(Honest)

It occurred to me that my Debbie Downer post makes me out to be an ingrate, and I want to make it clear that I'm not. After six solid months of precisely timed trying, S and I are quite delighted and over the moon about being preggers. By about May or so, we'd kind of resigned ourselves to the idea that maybe we weren't ever going to be able to make a baby without some sort of assistance, and we'd gotten pretty down (and, of course, anxious) about it. So please don't think we're all, "Shit! A baby! Damn it!" That's totally not it. We're more like, "Oh my god, it finally happened! We've made a teeny person together! We're going to be a family! Is this too good to be true? Can we really pull this off?"

So, I'd like to share some of the things about which I'm very excited, with regard to the lil' fetus and his or her future (assuming all goes well).

1. Can't wait to see what this wee little lad/lass looks like. I'm guessing Baby of M will have S's deep-set blue eyes and strong browbone. Perhaps my nose (gah!), which I'd characterize as "very British" as opposed to, say, "really huge." Obviously, bright blond hair. And for Baby of M's sake, let's hope he or she gets S's thighs.

2. Really curious about Baby of M's personality. Will he or she be happy-go-lucky, always grinning and laughing? Or, will he or she be more guarded and introspective and contemplative?

3. What kinds of things will Baby of M be good at, later on down the line? Where will his or her talents and interests lie? Will he or she love to read, like Mom and Dad do? One might think Baby of M might take an interest in writing. Perhaps he or she will be lucky enough to inherit Dad's talent for cartoon-style sketching. Will Baby of M love school and all things academic, or will he or she be more of a daydreamer? Will Baby of M be athletic? Musical? Creative? Logical? Mathematical? Ambitious? Laid-back? A smattering of everything?

4. Family vacations! Can't wait to show Baby of M my favorite places: the Northeast, London, the beach...

5. Teaching Baby of M compassion and respect for others. I want him or her to care about other people, and animals.

6. Just generally taking Baby of M out and about. You know, on little outings about town.

7. Watching S interact with Baby of M. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'll be a tremendous dad.

So, these are the types of things I let myself think about, on occasion, when I’m feeling relatively relaxed, calm, and confident.