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...)