February 16 Belly

Our iphone app tells us that our little critter is now a large mango and I think if you squint your eyes up, Cati's belly looks a little like that delicious fruit. She's been feeling strong and definitive kicks for the last couple days, and even thought yesterday as she was groggily waking up that she might have felt a kick with her hand. I, being an expert in all things that I've never heard of, said that I was sure it was too early. But the accursed internet undermined me yet again, and it turns out 19 weeks is early but still possible to feel a kick on the outside. Once I figured out a way to make it seem like I'd been saying that all along, I immediately glued my hand to her abdomen...eventually she had to bat me away, complaining I was making her have to pee. But I keep checking. The thought of touching hands or feet or elbows with our little baby is enough to make me a little crazy. Cati's being very understanding.

Which brings me to another point... Cati is amazing. I mean, I guess all mothers are amazing, but in my unbiased opinion Cati kicks the ass of all other mothers. If I get sick for a couple days I start getting depressed and snappish, meanwhile Cati's entire body is changing, sometimes painfully, every day. I am constantly astounded at her good spirits and fearlessness about the coming challenge of birth.

I know there are a lot of good reasons to wait until later to have a child, and certainly in my case I'll be a MUCH better father now than I would have been in my twenties. But one advantage you miss out on by waiting is that there is an awe and admiration for women and mothers that just suffuses your being the more you learn about and watch pregnancy and birth. I don't think it ever soaked into me until just this last couple of weeks that my own mom carried me around, nauseous, back pain, had her whole body change, struggled through a difficult birth (I was backwards) and here I am, the same kind of miracle we are witnessing now. I think the moment I really felt it was seeing a picture of how the mother's stomach actually lifts up to behind her ribs to make room for the baby. That's just the beginning of how much room our mothers make for us as we thrash around, kicking, crying, laughing, needing, grabbing...

And it's not just mothers. We boys take up a lot of room.

I think that's the knowledge I wish I'd had when I was younger: Boys are pretty damned lucky women have agreed to continue producing us. Very generous if you ask me.