This Girl Can Move

Well, don't worry, that title is not self-descriptive. I'm talking about our daughter in utero-Maya. The girl is all over these days, letting me know she is there and ALIVE! I clearly remember the first time that i felt her move (of course because I didn't write it down, i have no idea when that happened). I had decided that I was going to lay down on the floor, and be really still, and concentrate really hard, and maybe I would feel her move. It was unclear at first whether I was feeling baby movement or just normal digestion, but after rolling on my sides and pushing where I thought I felt something, the feeling moved around to different places and I knew for the first time, I had felt my child move! It so exciting! Since then it has become MUCH more obvious when she is moving, and now she's to the point where any time I am sitting down for very long, I can count on her "waking up" and stretching her legs. All this to say, I have felt kind of bad for Matt all this time, because it's like I've had this special secret exchange with our daughter that he has been left out of. Of course he also got left out of a lot of other special things, like the months of vomiting, the growing pains, the tossing and turning, the leg cramps and twitching, and most recently the tossing and turning. But this special thing I really wanted to be able to share with him, because it felt like such an important confirmation that indeed, there is a little HUMAN growing inside of me and she wakes up when she wants and she sleeps when she wants and she is getting bigger and stronger. So, with all of this in mind, and after weeks of waiting for those little nudges to get big enough for him to feel, I was determined that he too, would feel Maya kicking. I laid down on the couch, and waited until she was in the mood to really kick up her heels, and had him come and kneel beside me and put both hands on my belly. I had him put some pressure to make sure he didn't miss it. And we waited. . . and waited. . . and then she did it. She kicked (or somersaulted or punched, who knows) enough for him to feel. It was so cool! We waited for her to do it one more time, just to be sure he had felt her. It was so much fun to finally get to share that moment with Matt after weeks of feeling her on my own, and always reporting to him, "She's kicking now!". I'm looking forward to many more moments like that where we look at each other in wonder over something our child has done. We're still pretty easily impressed though, at this point, all she has to do is move around to get us teary-eyed!