He’s GROWING! Wanna know how I know? No. No stretchmarks – yet. (Please God, spare me my tummy! My boobs are already shot. Give me a chance to have that banging hot, flat stomach I’ve always fantasized about! I promise I will cherish a no stretchmark midsection and give it the attention I never did in my pre-fetus sharing days. Mommies can have sexy stomachs, right? I mean, hell…Kelly Rippa shrinks 50 % after each child. If she has any more, she’s going to float off to Canada the first time she lets one rip.) Anyway…. for the last week my stomach has had a mild sunburn, except that my stomach hasn’t seen the sun in…. I don’t even know how long. It’s a light shade of pink, itchy, turns white where I touch it. It’s stretching out!
And my belly button, which I swore would never pop out (severe innie), is getting dangerously close to looking like a turkey thermometer when the bird is done. It’s not quite there yet, but the ring around my belly button is very clearly skin that was once inside of it. It’s softer and a yellowish-brown. I have ring around the button! I’ve also noticed it’s becoming increasingly difficult to bend over without feeling like something is jabbing me in the gut.
Speaking of jabbing…with increased growth comes increased ass kicking from the inside! Actually, crotch kicking would describe it more accurately. He has really picked up the movements, but for the longest time the only place I could really feel those strong kicks/punches/headbuts (I have no idea what body part is inflicting the crotch kicks) was way down on what I could only envision is the top of my bladder. And I could only feel them on the inside, never from the outside. Although thinking about how one would go about feeling a crotch kick from the outside makes me think that I never really had the opportunity to walk around shoving my hand down my underwear whenever I felt him karate chop my bladder while out and about.
It was really bothering me that at nearly 25 weeks my husband hadn’t been able to feel him kick yet. I felt behind the curve. Like my baby was maybe not strong enough or not active enough. This, my friends, is a direct result of reading too many websites and message boards and hearing too many women say, “MY husband felt the baby kick and then do the tango inside of me at 20 weeks!” Ugh…must stop milestone comparisons. Now.
So this weekend, as I was Googling what could possibly be wrong with my son and all the reasons why my husband STILL had not felt him kick, I suddenly felt a very strong kick from the outside – just ABOVE my crotch. My husband, exhausted from a day of watching our niece, had passed out early. I ran to the bedroom, swung open the door, flipped on the lights and jumped in bed with him in a matter of seconds. I then shook him until one eye cracked open, grabbed his hand and shoved it down my pants. “He’s kicking! Hard! Can you feel him?!” His response…”Huh? What? What time is it? Oh….he’s kicking? Yeah…yeah…I can feel him.” Me- “YOU CAN?! YAAAAY! Is it cool? Are you excited?….Hey…HEY… are you awake? Did you really just feel him or did you just say that?” Him- “Uh…oh…yeah, yeah. I felt him.”
So I left him alone and the next morning he says to me, “Did you really come in here last night trying to get me to feel the baby kick, or did I just dream that?” He then tells me he can’t remember if he actually felt him kick. Damnit! I’m sure he did. He said he felt him twice at the exact same time I felt him. Ah well… I’m still excited. He’ll feel him and remember it eventually. Just another excuse to shove his hand down my pants unexpectedly ; )
25 weeks
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How exciting!
This is completely unrelated, but a few posts back, you talked about “breaking the seal” around your husband. Have you done that yet? If yes, how did that go?? I have been with my husband for almost 6 years now and he has (or claims he has, anyway) heard me twice in my sleep! That’s it. So I was just wondering how that went for you?
LAMO! This is awesome! Every time Brock starts kicking I grab my DH’s hand and make him feel. Most of the time he is half asleep and doesnt remember it the next morning!
Jennifer, I still haven’t! It’s not that I’ve been trying hard not to, but my gassiness has sort of plateaued. I know it’s coming though. I’ve already warned him. He says things sometimes when I burp like, “I’m totally okay with you burping all the time. It would be a different story if you were walking around farting all day.” To which I shoot him a warning glare and remind him that that very well may be the case here shortly, and he better be okay with that!
I’m late to the game on this one, but I bet your placenta is acting like a buffer like mine does. The difference between a placenta-padded kick and a unprotected kick is huge! But I only feel that way high or way to the side.
My husband does not share my enthusiasm for feeling kicks. He is just patronizing me.