28 weeks and 35 extra pounds...

Once again, I am a little off from my month by month picture, but here I am, in all my glory. My weight gain has slowed down, but I have still added about 35 pounds at this point.

One of my students, Brian, likes to refer to me as "Watermelon Belly", as he insists that it simply looks like I swallowed a watermelon. "The rest of you looks exactly the same. You just look like you have a watermelon in your belly."

In fact, that is the comment I seem to be getting from a lot of people. My face looks like the same, my legs (minus my poor ankles) look the same. Only my arms, Glenn tells me, look a little bigger. I told him that I have to get bigger arms to carry around all that baby stuff.

More and more, people around school are coming up and saying they didn't know I was pregnant. Every day, it seems like I get into the school elevator and have a different teacher from the third floor, who I never see, say to me, "Oh congratulations." There is an Asian custodian, who gets a big smile on my face every time she sees me and says simply, "It's a boy!" She could tell, simply by the way he was sticking straight out.

Another comment I get from my students is that it must be strange to have this feeling inside. Indeed, Jamie is making his presence known more and more. Not too many sharp kicks (unless I poke him, which he hates), but brushes and pokes, little pats here and there. Occasionally, he pokes me in two places at one time, making me think he is practicing his dance moves. According to my sister, he is quite active. While she was here, she felt a lot of little movements.

For me, though, these things are becoming as regular as feeling my stomach growl used to be. A little reminder that it isn't just me in this body, but nothing that makes me stop and take notice. Just a little "hello" throughout the day. It makes me smile and when I am sitting down, I do still find myself pausing to put my hand on my belly. I guess it is like saying hello back.

Today, for the first time, I felt two things that I have heard about. Earlier this evening, he gave two sharp kicks with what I am guessing was his foot, right where my belly button is. Just after the kicks, I felt the area and it was extremely hard. All around it was softer, leading me to believe that I must have come across his foot. Glenn actually got to feel this too and said it was unmistakable.

Later on in the evening, Glenn tried to make him move on command, by calling him "Boy". Imagine Glenn, with a southern accent, saying, "Kick, boy" to my belly. Jamie refrained from answering, as I instructed him not to. However, a few minutes later, as I lay there, I felt a rhythmic tap and realized that for the first time I was actually catching hiccups in progress.

It seems often like this point in the pregnancy brings few new occurences. I am used to this body and these feelings, and it makes it seem like there is nothing for me to write about in my blog. But then he does something like get the hiccups, and I am reminded that there is always something new.